CHICAGO FACES ITS FATE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19373, 23 December 1932, Page 12

CHICAGO FACES ITS FATE

"A BATTERED GIANT. BUT FIGHTING STILL.” SQUARE-SHOOTING MAYOR. It was a man of substance the other day, though not even himself knows what remains of that substance to-day, who broke into the conversation with this frank confession (writes Mary Borden in the. “Daily Telegraph”). “We're bankrupt. Chicago has got 300.000.000d01. of back taxes to pay. We've no money to pay them with. What does it mean? It means, for one thing, that we’re blacklisted by the Federal Government for ten years, and can look for no help in that quarter." “What are you going to do about it?” “Well, we've got a pretty good mayor. He's forced a reorganisation of the city government, and we're all backing him. Yes, Tony Cermak’s a pretty good mayor.” “He's a politician, but he's not a hog. A big, husky, two-fisted brute, Bohemian bom, brought up in a little country town of Illinois. He’s a fighter and a Liberal, always has been. He was president of the Board of County Commissioners all during the time Bill Thompson was mayor, and he kept the County Board solvent while Big Bill was looting the city. He's fighting rackets and the old political gang.” “What do you mean by his not being a hog?” “I mean money wasn't his only object. He's a politician. knows the game; but getting rich never was his main object, and he's shrewd enough to see that it’s to his advantage now to be a thorough, square-shooting may ,r." “But what is he doing? You say he’s forcing a new organisation of the city.” “Well, he's cut the city budget by fifty million dollars. He's sacked the old gang, and he’s forced all the city employees to work seventy-eight days in the year, that's two and a-half months, without pay. That’ll save another three millions. He’s trying to save ten more, and I guess he’ll do it.” We were interrupted. A woman, whom I will call Pat, for we all call her that, got up and came round to me. “There's a reporter from the Tribune’ outside," she said. “He wants to know if you will make a. statement about the anti-Prohibition campaign. It would be such a help if you would.” “Of course.” I put down my knife and fork. “But what’s it got to do with you. Pat?” I asked, for I remembered her as a frivolous scatter-brain. Who Shall Rule America? “Oh. Ginevra and I are organising it. We began four days ago. For repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. We’ve got 120.000 signatures in four days; not bad, is it? I thought, maybe, you wouldn’t mind making a statement for the Press, if you’re for us. Are you wet, Mary, or dry?” “Soaking wet,” I said. “Come on, then, that’s grand.” So I told the “Tribune,” and afterwards every other newspaper in the city, what the people of England felt about this American problem, and I didn’t mince matters. I didn’t have to. When I said bluntly that it looked to us in London as if it were no longer a matter of drinking or not drinking, but simply a question as to w'ho was going to rule America, the bootleggers or the Government. Pat. Ginerva. and the reporters broke in excitedly: “That’s the stuff, that’s what we want. Give us some more.” And I gave them some more. “Put it as strong as you like,’ I said. “You can’t put it too strongly for me.” We talked about Congress after that and about the unemployed, and it was not wild talk. It was savage—so savage that I felt suddenly exhilarated. Just why it is difficult to explain, for j the facts are not exhilarating; they are grim. Out of a population which now numbers three millions and a-half (within the city limits) 700,000 are on public relief and 500.000 are being supported by their relations. Or, put differently, out of a total number of normally employed men and women two out of five are without jobs. To meet this emergency all funds have been pooled and all relief organisations centralised under a joint relief fund. The women at the dinner party gave me a good many facts that night. They were all doing relief work. I learned more the next day. A newspaper man took me round.

“I don’t know anybody,” he told me, “who’s got a job who isn’t supporting at least one. more often two. families beside his own. The emergency relief fund gives 20 cents a day per person, or about sdol. a week per family.” The allowance. I noticed, was about a third of what the Emergency Work Bureau has been giving in New York. “That’s for food,” he went on, “and they can live on it. Each gets a diet sheet every week telling them what’s best and cheapest to buy. They are distributed by the newspapers and the relief centres."

“That leaves nothing,” I said, “for rent, clothes, and so on. What do they do when they can’t pay rent?” “There are special agencies for distributing clothes. When they can’t pay their rent they double up. There are 25.000 flats in this town housing from two to four families of decent, welleducated people—people of my class. Then there are shelters.” It was the case of New York’s homeless men and homeless women over again. “What about funds?” “Well, we raised ten million dollars in private subscriptions in the early winter. That was exhausted the first j of February. The State of Illinois appropriated twenty millions. It’s paid out of the gas tax. That will be gone by the Ist of August. Then it will appropriate another twenty millions that will last till January I. It’s the dole, that’s what it amounts to. Only it s not an insurance scheme. Our working peoule didn't insure, you see. against this.” What’s Happening to Chicago? He made a wide gesture. It took in a city that included ten cities, from Gary, Illinois, to the south, that dead city of the United States Steel Company, to Lake Forest, that country town of the once rich, twenty miles to the north; it took in the Lake Shore Drive, the most beautiful street in the wc-rld (barring Princes street, Edinburgh), and Michigan avenue, with its sky-scraping towns. it took in the stock yards and the wheat pit, and Lincoln Park and Jackson Park and Washington Park and Duck Island and Little Hill, grim districts to the west, where gunmen had once flourished (they are strangely quiet now), and Little Mexico and Little Sicily, where A 1 Capone was uncrowned king (he's in gaol), and Chinatown, that is governed by its Chinese mayor, and the black belt, a ten miles long solid mass of negro dwellings. What did it all mean? What was happening now 7 to my native city as I sat there in the “Tribune” tower looking out across the blue water of Lake Michigan? What more. I asked myself, could happen? Had it had a knock-out blow, this bounding, bumptious, bankrupt town? Yes. a series of them. The big brute of a place, with its immense vitality, colossal ambition, and naive pride, had

been knocked silly. It had had all the conceit knocked out of it. But could it die. crumble to dust, abandoned by its people? No, it could not. New York might be gutted and drained of life, not Chicago. Its base was too broad, the source of its energy too natural. It was founded on the prairies of the west, on their cattle and wheat, and on the cotton fields of Tennessee, Mississipi, Louisiana. It sprawled across the earth, drew its strength from the earth. Yes, Chicago was awful, but in its distress it was grand, for it was angry. It reminded me of a battered riant in a ring, blinded by a rain of blows, winded and half-stunned, but still fighting, fighting, indeed, as never before. Counted out? No. not Chicago.