HIS HOME TOWN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20290, 24 December 1927, Page 13

HIS HOME TOWN.

“BIG BILL” OF CHICAGO. THE POLITICAL MACHINE. A MOTLEY POPULACE. An interesting account of Chicago of to-day, which has made ‘‘ Big Bill ” Thompson possible, was given recently by a correspondent in The Times. Like Ancient Gaul the great city of Chicago falls into three parts (he wrote). The River Chicago, a small stream, which there falls into Lake Michigan, is formed by the junction of two branches which converge from the north-west and the south-west about a mile from its mouth, and thus form the North Side, the West Side, and the South Side of the city. On the east lies Lake Michigan, along which the city extends for mor e than 25 miles with beautiful beaches, drives, and parks where the people make holiday in summer. The visitor to the city is not likely to miss another section on the South Side, small in size but of vast importance, known as “ The Loop,” formed by the tracks of the elevated railways which there make a circuit of an area about a mile square, so that the trains may return to the outlying districts from which they have come. The Loop is the heart of Chicago and its business centre. It is the home of the offices and shops housed in buildings rising to a height of 10, 12, and 14 storeys. There are the City Hall and the courts, the Exchanges, many warehouses, and not a few factories. It is almost sacrilege for any business of standing to hav e its headquarters elsewhere. Thus the greater part of the working population of Chicago flocks into this small area in the daytime. The noice and din of electric trains and cars, the constant hurrying of workers to and fro, and the stream of motor cars, the constant jams of heavy traffic, the scurrying of lifts to dizzy heights, the clamour and the tumult all make the stranger feel that here he has found the real home of the hustler. Outside the Loop the noise and the tumult soon die away and Chicago bears the aspect of a city of homes, small shops,

and factories where ordinary pursuits go on in a quiet and regular manner. Each of the three parts of the city it may bo found can b e readily subdivided into smaller sections, in which the inhabitants are at times to be classified economically, but more often racially. On the fringe of the Loop is an area where cheap lodging houses abound. Into this drifts each winter a largo army of men of all kinds and tongues from the whoatliclds and other parts where work has ceased for the season, men whose small store of savings is soon scattered and who must drag along a pitiable existence till the spring, when their work starts once more. RACIAL SETTLEMENTS. On th e South Side from 12th' street onwards lies the rapidly expanding negro district, the population of which has more than doubled in the last ten years. Further to the south around the great stockyards, which are situated in the vicinity of 43rd street, is a large Polish settlement. Still further south are other settlements of a racial character, notably at West Pullman, which lies where the number indicating the streets has passed well beyond the hundred. On the West Side the racial settlements are even more noticeable. First come the Italians, not far distant from the heart of the city, close to an area which was once the haunt of “ gunmen ” and “ thugs " and others of that sort. Still farther to the west arc newer districts, where the more recent immigrants have made their homes, street following street of Bohemians, Slovaks, Ruthenians, or Galicians, each having their own small corner of the city. On the North Side the Germans have taken up their abode, and at times there is to be found, or there were in happier days, many a little beer garden reminiscent of the Fatherland. Also on the North Side are the Scandinavians living apart in their own district areas. All these different races have_ their daily or weekly newspapers in their own languages, their own churches, theatres, and some schools, where the speech, the customs, and traditions, and even the diet of the homeland are faithfully and jealously preserved. Of course this racial division of the people is not universal in Chicago or in any other city, and there are large areas where the system does not prevail. There lie the homes of the American native-born, the majority of them of British descent, who have lived in the country for generations, and the more recent British immigrants. The British settler is soon acclimatised to the country; he is quickly converted into a good American. Others retain for long their national ties and sentiment; they live generally as a community . part within the community.

POLITICS AND HACK. In recent years the more idealistic oi American politicians have been urging a more vigorous campaign for the Americanisation of the newcomer to the country, a more rapid assimilation of American civilisation, and the breaking down of the racial barriers which have set each people apart in a separate national group. But there are two sides to American politics. There is, on the one hand, the theoretical and the ideal, high-sound ing and proper; and, on the other, the practical, which is concerned wholly with the winning of votes and the carrying of elections. In the heat and fury of an election campaign there is no appeal whicn comes so close to the heart as an appeal to racial feeling. So that the practical politician in America, while loudly proclaiming his 100 per cent. Americanism and raising both hands for a more rapid assimilation of the new settler, in fact lends his whole weight and influence for the perpetuation and flattery of racial feeling and sentiment, on which he may work to good effect from time to time and so win himself friends to aid him on polling day. It is something of this kind which is now going on at Chicago. The antiBritish outbursts of the present Mayor. Mr William Hale Thompson,, are nothing new. They began more than 10 years ago when Mr Thompson first becai Mayor and bitterly attacked the A 1 in the early days of the war bef' America had entered. He was then silenced, but his remarks had created such bad feeling that Marshal Joffre and other French delegates came but hesitatingly to Chicago and British representatives still more guardcdlv. Mr Thompson, who is a practical politician, if ever there was one, probably imagines in in's heart that his abuse of Great Britain wins him friends among the other national communtiies of the city of Chicago of the magnitude and extent of which he has been known to make a proud boast. IN A WILD WEST HAT.

Mayor Thompson is nominally a Republican, though disowned by many members of that parly and unsupported by any ol the newspapers in Chicago. Like most of the other groat cities, Ch'eago has generally been democratic, and Mr Thompson’s immediate predecessor, when he was first elected Mayor in 1915, was Mr Carter Harrison, a Democrat, who had held the post, tion for five terms and had followed his father, who was assassinated while Mayor during the great World’s Fair in 1893. When Mr Thompson “ threw his hat into the ring ” his candidature was not taken seriously. He was not expected to carry the party nomination, much less secure election. Rut his plans had been well laid, and when the election was over be was found to be at the head of the poll. Before that time Mr Thompson had shown little inclination for politics. Ho was the son of a wealthy father, who had amassed a large fortune in real estate deals in Chicago. In his younger days he was a famous athlete, his great size and strength making him a very prominent figure on the fields and winning him the name which has stuck to him ever since—- “ Rig Rill.” F' r some years he worked on Western ranches as a cowboy, and still retains memories of thoao days, and both

he and his chief followers wear the “ high Stetson ” hats of cowboys which are familiar to all frequenters of the film theatres. CONTROL OF THE MACHINE. Mr Thompson’s success in politics is based on a, very thorough organisation. He has built up for himself a most effective political machine, his control of which, a leading American newspaper said a few weeks ago, would have made Croker or Tweed envious. It rests on the solid- basis of the division of the spoils of office, but as there are not enough plums to go round it has to seek occasional stimulus from such a campaign _as the present arousing of national feeling by the abase of Great Britain, the hereditary foe. One of the Mayor’s duties in Chicago is to control the education of the city and appoint the members of the school board. Mr Thompson has now raised an outcry against certain historical text books used in the schools, which he declares have been written as propaganda for Great Britain belittling the early heroes of the Ware of Independence -and exalting King George 111. But so far from there being a campaign of British propaganda in Chicago or any other American city, the exact opposite is nearer the truth. 'Every other nationality has its home apart and forms a solid political unit which the office-seeking politician finds it to liis advantage to cajole, flatter, and win over to his side by promises of good things. Not so the British ; they are completely lost and submerged and never come to the top. Every other race has its propaganda, but not the British, whose case is so little known, hardly appreciated, and certainly very little understood in the United States. The others stand round with the joy and satisfaction of the onlooker while the Mayor of Chicago assiduously twists the tail of the long-suffering and patient linn, who makes no murmur or complaint. But, after all, is it surprising that there should be such outbursts frequently against this country? We seem at times to be quite without regard for what people say or think of us m other lands, and even in some of our own dominions among our own kith and kin the British are hopelessly misunderstood and unappreciated because wo do not rhake ourselves known. Is it surprising, too, that the Mayor of Chicago should abuse us for his own ends, when "there are writers of our own country who misrepresent their own land in the press and magazines of America ?