CHICAGO’S AUGEAN STABLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21054, 17 June 1930, Page 8

CHICAGO’S AUGEAN STABLE.

Chicago -'ha's"'never done anything by halves: --.When a permanent orchestra 1 was required to provide sweet music for Chicagoan ears a, local plutocrat endowed one; when art institutes, universities and parks are required some fabulously wealthy citizen is always found ready to foot the bill. It was in tha natural order of things, therefore, that when Prohibition came into force in America, offering' unprecedented opportunities for lucintive . IhAy-breakihg, Chicago , should make a, bpld s bid for a. reputation as the most lawless city in the United States. The Chicago gangs enjoy world-wide notoriety, and the leaders of the underworld are national figures. When Martin Durkin,, one of Chicago’s most popular boot-leggers, shot a police officer three years ago and , was arrested, crowds cheered his picture oh the kinema screen and booed; the police until the film was suppressed. It is only .natural that a city’ which has produced an unrivalled list of notorious “ underworld chieftains," which has, on its own confession, the world’s worst mayor, the ’ world’s greatest newspaper, the world’s largest stockyards, the world’s best philanthropist, and the world’s most complicated system of municipal government and the greatest assembly of races, should, when it decides,;to “clean up” the world’s greatest cess-pools of vice, proceed: to do so oh the grand scale. Searching about for the most prominent notable who might lead the drive to “ wipe out the city’s underworld menace;” the people of Chicago have east their eyes upon General Dawes, whose sobriquet “ Hell and Maria ” is sufficiently exprcssive of his reputation for direct and forceful dealing. It bnly remains for , General Dawes to accept the invitation, that is to be extended to himand to get , to work, and Chicago will

no doubt then be able to proclaim with pride and gusto that a..“cleaning uji” unparalleled since sdekmg' ok Carthage is nuclei:’ wvayv - Perhaps it should . be placed on record 'that Chicago has previously made strenuous efforts to. reform itself, but unfortunately the results have not ever been as strikingly evident as the conditions which called for betterment. Before the American Civil War a Mayor named " Long John ” Wentworth made nis influence for better government felt, and in later years Mr. Garter-Har-rison the • second, and Mayor i Dever have ; attempted, without appreciable success, to enforce Chicago’s laws, to bring to Chicago’s gangsters a.-sense of civic responsibility. The most effective “clean up” was possibly that which occurred in 1871/ when Mrs 0 Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and the Great Chicago Fire destroyed 18,000 buildings in two days. It is possible, however, that even loyal Chicagoans might consider another fire rather too sweeping an eradicator, even though they w.piild doubtless be able to make it a phenomenal conflagration if the necessity arose. 'The history of Chicago is brief in years, extending back only a century, but it is distinguished by many exciting events. Perhaps the purge of vice to which General Dawes is to be invited to subject this remarkable city .will figure no less impressively in the annals of Chicago than the World’s Fair and other highlights of its short but well-advertised career. ‘