DEFEAT OF “BIG BILL.”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18847, 9 April 1931, Page 9

DEFEAT OF “BIG BILL.”

Chicago Changes Mayor. STAGGERING DEATH BLOW TO “ THOMPSONISM.” United Press Association--By Electrti * e.egraph—Copyright (Received April 8, 5.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 7. Mr Anton Cermak (Democrat) has been elected Mayor of Chicago, ending the reign of Mayor William Thompson, by a majority which promises to exceed 200,000. Mr Cermak, who is Bohemianborn, has been swept into office by the largest majority ever given a candidate for the mayoralty of this city. Record Mayoralty. Mr Anton J. (“Tone”) Cermak, a former Bohemian coalmine mule driver, administered to “Big Bill” Thompson, what apparently is the worst beating ever received by a Mayoralty candidate in Chicago, Mr Cermak winning the election, in which a record number of ballots were cast. “Big Bill” Thompson failed to do so well as was expected, even in the sections in which he hoped to find the most favour. The result also considerably strengthened the State power of the Democratic Party. The election was quiet and devoid of all disorder, except a few minor fist fights. Mr Cermak, whose candidacy was markedly dignified compared with Thompson’s, takes office on Friday, l He will “clean out the City Hall,” and remove therefrom, as far as possible, all traces of “Thompsonism.” The new Mayor is fifty-eight years of age, and was born near Prague. He was brought to Chicago at the age of one year, and earned his own living when eleven. “BIG BILL’S” MAIN ASSET. STUDIED ABUSE OF HIS OPPONENTS. In an earlier contest, the opponents of Thompsonism were at a big disadvantage. “Big Bill” had an argument to which it was quite impossible for a self-respecting opponent to attempt to reply in kind. According to the report which was published in March: After a series of verbal clashes producing a highly charged atmosphere, Thompson enlivened the scene with street parades of elephants, each bearing a statement ridiculing his opponents. The elephants must surely constitute an electioneering record even for “Big Bill,” but this is not the first election in which he has invoked the aid of the animal kingdom. During his 1927 campaign a Chicago paper reported one of his meetings in the “Loop” as follows: Big Bill Thompson put on his rat show yesterday at the Cort Theatre. With two big rats from the stockyard, one named Fred, after Fred Lundin, and the other Doc, after Dr. John Dill Robertson, the former Mayor, kept his audience interested as he addressed his remarks to the two rodents. “This one,” he said, indicating the rat named after Dr. Robertson, “this one Is Doc. I can tell him because he hadn’t had a bath in twenty years until we washed him yesterday. But we did wash him, and he doesn’t smell like a billy goat any longer.” “Don’t hang your head, now, Fred,” he said, addressing the other rat. “Fred, let me ask you something: Wasn’t I the best friend you ever had? Isn’t true that I came home from Honolulu to save you from the penitentiary?” Big Bill then related how he lived up to the cowboy code of standing by his friends and came home as a character witness in the school-board graft trial. Thompson said he had six rats to start with, but that Fred and Doc ate up the other four, which were smaller. The comment of one of the gentlemen impersonated by “Big Bill’s” rats was that he was using “the guttersnipe talk of a hoodlum.” The other retorted by asking, “Who killed McSwiggin?” and by some other reference to Thompson’s association with “the multi-millionaire crime ring.” “The Doc is slinging mud,” replied “Big Bill.” I’m not descending to personalities, but you should watch Doc Robertson eating in a restaurant —eggs in his whiskers, soup on his vest; you’d think the Doc got his education driving a garbage wagon.”