The Truth About Gangster-Ridden Chicago.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 17 (Supplement)

The Truth About Gangster-Ridden Chicago.

Two Great Criminals Forced From The Stage .

(Written for the “Star” by Allan G. Sleeman.)

J WAS IN CHICAGO the day that Big Bill Thompson, the blustering, bellicose, boisterous Irish-American got his marching orders from a city that had grown tired of gangster rule. I saw Big Bill after the election slumped in the Mayoral chair in his private suite at the Chicago City Hall, tired, nervous, broken. And I heard a fellow-newspaperman who had known him for the twelve years that he’d been mismanaging Chicago’s affairs declare: “ That guy never could take a licking.” Looking at Big Bill then, I found myself unable to understand how America’s second city could elevate such a clown to the position which Thompson had held so long. I don’t understand yet the tolerance or the gullibility of a people who would swallow the undiluted bunk which the Circus Mayor handed out in his election campaigns. You wouldn’t understand Chicago! Election time in the second city of

the United States provides an excellent opportunity to apply the gauge to the intellect of this gangster-ridden people. I remember the last election when the Cermak supporters published full page advertisements in the newspapers: "Your vote will decide Chicago’s destiny for four long years.— Shall gangs continue to rule?—Shall Chicago’s unsavoury reputation be continued?” Big Bill Thompson called Cermak a pig and a Wop and a jackass, and Cermak retaliated describing Thompson as a slab-jawed ape, while the “Chicago Tribune” printed the worst possible photographs of the unlovely cowboy mayor standing beside a donkey, with a caption pointing out which was Thompson. . While the combatants hurled down calumnies on each other’s head and the citizens grinned, the police prepared to thwart possible gun play and violence at the big- election. Newspapers all over the United States discussed the grotesque and frenzied efforts of Big Bill to hold on to the mayoral

chair. He chose to use his ancient trump card which had served him so well on previous occasions, declaring repeatedly that he was fighting King George and the British financial interests who were trying to get a grip on Chicago. That A 1 Capone, the beer and vice lcrd, was carrying on business as usual at the old stand was a matter of inconsequence to the loud-speaking mayor, whose only concern was that King George might at any moment send an expedition down Lake Michigan to capture and hold Chicago. And Big Bill told them that there was only one way by which they could avoid such a fate—and that was by reelecting Big Bill. He threw open the barn door, that the public might look in and enjoy a full view of the insidious royal and financial plot. Ruddy, full-voiced, pantomimic, he made his daily plea in down-town theatres while thousands, unable to gain admittance, clamoured at the entrance and clogged the thoroughfares for blocks as they sought to catch a glimpse of him. “ The candidature of dictator Tony the Wop,” shouted Thompson at one of his election campaign meetings, “points directly to the King of England and the interests of the British Empire. Back of him are international banking interests seeking to do the will of Great Britain.” And the mayor’s supporters hissed roundly and lustily at the international banking interests, booed the King with great enthusiasm and howled: “You tell ’em. Bill!” “ I’ll say I’ll tell ’em,” replied Thompson. “If Cermak is elected he will dominate city, state and national politics, play into the hands of the big bankers and promote the British programme of domination over this country. Mark my words, King George is watching this election and he’ll get quick reports of the returns.” Easter Sunday was just another day of speech-making as far as the candidates in Chicago’s mayoralty fight were concerned

Thompson had thousands pf handsomely lithographed pictures of himself and his ten-gallon cowboy hat prepared, and these his workers handed to startled worshippers as they left the churches in all parts of the city. Thompson personally kept the air full of radio speeches in which he predicted all kinds of terrible fates for Chicago if the citizens did not return him to the city hall.

Reflecting the keen international interest shown in the election, the “London Times” sent F. C. Pockburn, its special correspondent, to Chicago to cover the event. “He arrived in the city yesterday all ready to list those killed in action during the balloting,” the “ Chicago Herald and Examiner,”

a Hearst daily, remarked facetiously. “ He was chagrined not to find even a bloody nose to start him off.” From London, too, the day before the election, there came a trans-Atlantic telephone call placed by the “ Daily Herald,” which as a result of the long distant interview, quoted Chicago’s Chief of Police as follows: “ There ain’t going to be any killings in Chicago to-morrow,. A 1 Capone don’t run this city. There ain’t any Capone syndicate here. In fact, there aint any crime in Chicago; it’s a clean city—the cleanest city in the world.” Referring to Mayor Thompson, the “ Herald ” quoted the chief as saying: “ Do you think you could get your King George to send Big Bill a mes-

sage? Mr Thompson is friendly to your King and wants to help him. King George could do Bill a lot of good and he wants his help.”

King George is not known to have given Big Bill the assistance he asked for, but cabled despatches to the American Press told of the King s amusement at Thompson’s suggestion that the King was after the city hall of Chicago.

Thompson went to the poll and received the thrashing of his life, when Cermak beat him by a majority of more than 191,000 votes. Cermak took office the day after his election, and it was the day after that that he made a few staggering discoveries concerning the administration of his cowboy predecessor. Cermak immediately announced that, although* Thompson was Mayor only for the first three months of 1931, he had spent half of the millions appropriated for thfe city’s use during 1931. “And in some cases the appropriations were completely exhausted,” lamented Cermak.

Intended to advertise, in typical Chicago fashion, the overthrow of Big Bill Thompsonism, the election of Anton J. Cermak and the renunciation of the city’s criminal reputation, a great demonstration was held the day following the election.

Five hundred dancing girls cavorted in a cold breeze that night around the world-famqus Buckingham fountain, off Michigan Boulevard. An historical parade with so many cars that they were compelled to travel four abreast moved through. the Loop; tying the city’s traffic in a hopeless tangle of knots. Upon nearly every street corner a jazz band played enthusiastically under a weird haze of blue and green cast by specially placed lamps. Cermak meanwhile got down to business. After firing 3800 city employees because he didn’t think they were doing anv work, he started a personal review of all the other municipal workers. He learned again to his surprise that

certain stenographers with " political pull ” had larger pay cheques than the department heads who dictated letters to them. He then compiled a list of the 147 bodies which levy separate taxes in Cook County, a memorandum which he said “ would be ridiculous if it weren’t true.” He blamed the multitudinous organisations for Chicago's high taxes and held them responsible in part for the city’s precarious financial situation. The 14,000 school teachers had had two payless pav days in succession, and thousands of other city employees were facing similar empty envelopes on their next pay day. “ The prodigal extravagance of the Thompson regime,” Cermak said, was the primary reason for Chicago's empty treasury. The new Mayor was so busy with the various pressing money problems of the nation's second largest city that he had but little time to worry about the police department, accused by re-

formers of accepting some 10,000,000 dollars yearly in graft from Scarface A 1 Capone anl other less notorious liquor, vice and gambling barons. Chicago has been looted by dishonest and incompetent public servants elected by the people or chosen by the political machines that have dominated the city, and it will be a long time before it recovers from the effects of the Thompson regime. * Chicago will have wiped out her gangs before the big World’s Fair in 1933, the United States District Attorney, George E. Q. Johnson, declared after the election. Chicago, he says, as “ the city that has wiped out its gangs,” will be, in itself, the finest exhibit available for the fair which w>ll attract milligns from al! parts of the globe. In the meantime Capone has been placed behind the bars and is likely’ to stay there eleven years. Cermak is certainly cleaning up Chicago.