1931 The Sooner Magazine 87

Dr R. J. Dangerfield is a member of that brilliant group of men who make the govern- ment faculty one of the most stimulating of any southwestern university. Doctor Dangerfield spent the last year at the University of on a Spell- man-Rockefeller foundation fellowship, doing re- search on -Trends in Government Functions- for the President's Commission on social trends

Chicago: a study in municipal elections

BY R. J . DANGERFIELD

FEARLESS white-haired and music students than in any other reversal of the "experts fees" decision- federal Adistrict attorney and a dynamic, city in the world." You can ride across estimated to have saved him the re- vitriolic federal district judge have re the Michigan avenue bridge at mid- payment of over a million dollars to cently placed the skids under Al Ca- night with the 2,000,000,000 candle- the city. Unquestionably Thompson's pone. This is news. A fine of $50,000 power of the Lindbergh beacon flaming administration was discredited last fall . and a sentence of eleven years for the above you and the lights all about Many of his appointees were said to Lord of Vice and the King of the making a dream city of incomparable be stealing everything save the city hall. Rackets ranks as a most important beauty, while twenty feet below you, on His continued absence from the city event in the recent history of Chicago. the lower level of the same bridge, are and from his office weakened him But there are other events which pre- 2,000 homeless, decrepit, shivering and considerably . But the greatest cloud ceded this and have rendered possible starving men, wrapping themselves in over his political and personal future the present awakening and house-clean- old newspapers to keep from freezing. had been this decision of the lower ing of America's second city. Not the Chicago does nothing by halves. court that he owed the city one mil- least of these events was the defeat of Everything is grandiose. The Chicago lion dollars. Had the supreme court William Hale Thompson . fire, the Haymarket riot, the railroad failed to reverse the decision Thomp- Big Bill Thompson has been a po- strike of '94, the Eastland disaster are son would have been rendered almost litical phenomenon of first magnitude. examples of monumental horror. The penniless. But with the decision in his He deserves a front seat among the World's Fair of '93, the Stock yards, favor Big Bill was now ready to launch clowns on the Great American Band- the Merchandise Mart merit the fame into the fray and assume his role as wagon. Big Bill, the builder-Kaiser they know. Politics is likewise grandi- chief clown in Chicago politics. Bill-Bill of the Lincoln-Lorimer ose and unusual : Lorimer, and his ex- In the November election Thompson League-Bill of the Experts Fees and pulsion from the ; swung from the Republican ranks to School-board scandals-Bill, who wished Morris Eller, and his "Bloody Twen- support J. Ham Lewis, Democrat, for against the to hit King George on the Snoot- tieth;" "Hinky Dink" McKenna and the senate. Campaigning Bill the spellbinder and showman- "Bathhouse John" Coughlin, with their McCormicks and the Tribune, the may- Bill, the buffoon-and now Bill has incomparable rooming house wards; or promised a speech on the forefathers McCor- fallen, discredited and out, and with and last but not least there has been of the present Medills and his fall Chicago rises, phoenix-like, to "Big Bill." micks. The time was set and the Cort build anew. theater was packed, but the mayor was cleanse herself and The One can undersand Thompson and primary in the hospital suffering with an acute his defeat only when he understands Last fall the press of Chicago recog- attack of appendicitis. Commissioner of the mixing of the races called Chicago. nized the fact that Mayor Thompson public works, Mr Wolfe, read the You can get what you want in the would be a candidate in the Republican speech . No newspaper in Chicago or The "Windy City." "It is an a la carte city," primary for his fourth term. Thomp- elsewhere ever printed that speech. wrote William F. McDermott in the son's great object was to be the "World only report made was that it "was not July Scribners. You can get gangsters Fair Mayor" of Chicago. It will be re- fit to print." lined up against the wall and massa- called that the mayor of the city during Lewis defeated Mrs Ruth Hanna Mc- cred on St. Valentine's day or you the fair of '93 was the redoubtable Cormick with the greatest plurality the local Demo- may stand for an hour for a seat in Carter Harrison 1, who served five state has known and the Thomp- a fashionable church on Sunday morn- terms (as did also his son, Carter Har- cratic politicians took heart. from the Republican folds ing. rison 11) . son's switch of Lewis brought ou can get a man killed for fifty Thompson was rendered available as to urge the election head- dollars and you find more theological a candidate by the state supreme court's him to the front page in larger 88 The Sooner Magazine December lines than he had known since his Anti- to restore harmony for the "party's spurt typified in more ways than one British campaign ended in a timely sake." But the fight had been too bit- the mockery of elections in modern death. He became a certain candidate ter, too many hard names had been democracies . for reelection. uttered to permit of re-unions and re- While confident of victory, it was The mayor's bolt to Lewis alienated alliances and the anti-Thompson fac- difficult for the most partisan followers the official party bosses and if these tions remained anti . of Cermak to suppose that the Thomp- men could be brought behind a single son machine could be completely routed candidate the Thompson machine The election or its spell broken. Yet, in the election would be beaten in the primaries. Following the primary, a move was Thompson carried only five wards in Otherwise it looked like Bill would be made to launch the candidacy of Dr the city . The North Side wards, always the Republican choice . Negotiations be- Herman Bundeson, Cook county cor- Republican, swung to Cermak . Thomp- tween the leaders of the various fac- oner (incidentally the best vote-getter son's only strength was manifest in the tions of the party were consequently in the county) as an independent "black belt," the "bloody twentieth" undertaken. Snow, Harding, Brundage, against both Cermak and Thompson . and the twenty-eighth . Barrett, Lundin and Deneen endeavor- This candidacy could only have injured The broom swept clean and the city ed to reach an agreement on some the chances of the Democrats and as- breathed again. The process of re-hab- likely candidate they could all support. sisted in the re-election of Thompson . ilitation began immediately and the old In the midst of these pourparlers, judge Bundeson finally withdrew his petition forces packed to leave the city hall . Lyle of the municipal court, who had and all of the minor candidates were The first acts of the new mayor were been made a newspaper symbol for the ruled off the ballot on legal techni- to appoint leaders in civic affairs to anti-crime crusade, announced his can- calities . These events shattered Thomp- office . Professor Charles E. Merriam of didacy. This announcement rendered son's chances of an even break. Fac- the University of Chicago was tendered any agreement impossible. All save tional leaders behind Albert and Lyle membership on the school board but Deneen finally lined up behind the mil- remained secretly indifferent while their refused because he would necessarily itant jurist . Deneen entered his own followers fought Thompson . The Trib- have been a minority member among nominee-Alderman Arthur F. Alber, zsne and the News found common cause a large group of Thompson appointees. A three-cornered Republican primary against the Republicans and the cam- Professor Leonard D. White, of the was assured. paign was on . same institution, was appointed to the In the Democratic camp, Anton J. The Thompson parade swung into key position on the civil service com- Cermak demonstrated his political abil- fever heat for the last long struggle . mission . The mayor hired Mr J. L. ity by side-tracking the hose of "avail- The purpose was two-fold: to amuse Jacobs, efficiency engineer, to right the able" candidates. In the end there was the crowd and to villify the enemy. wrongs in the city administration . Only no opposition in the Democratic camp. Cermak's name became an issue ; his recently there has been a complete The Thompson-Lyle-Albert fight early nationality was hissed ; his business abil- housecleaning in the police department. developed into a personal duel. Thomp- ity was mocked. Such words as "bo- The old force is out and better and son, easily the most picturesque of the hunk" filled the Thompson tirades. cleaner things should result . candidates, accused the "Nutty Judge" Such claims as the following became Chicago is no ready to begin the and "Lil' Arthu-u-r" of being tools of the order of the day : "Vote for me . . . great cleaning up essential before the the and the Chicago jobs for the Poles. . . jobs for the Ne- holding of the 1933 "Pageant of Pro- Daily News, respectively . Before packed groes. . . jobs for the Irish. . . you gress." The "Public Enemies" are go- audiences the mayor exhibited the halt- can call the city hall the Capitol of ing-the long list of a year ago has ers the other candidates wore-the ends Poland ." "That's my skyline . . . I built been all but eliminated and a general of which were supposedly anchored in Chicago." repair of the police system seems to the Daily News Plaza or the Tribune Cermak, hopelessly outclassed in or- warrant optimistic predictions . The day Tower. Bill staged gigantic circus pa- atory and showmanship and clowning, of awakening is at hand . The course rades in the streets of Chicago and free conducted a dignified campaign . He to a new city is at least laid out and vaudeville shows in the Cort theater submitted his record of twenty-four the World's Fair of 1933 should do each noon . The principal characters in years in public office to answer Thomp- much to aid its realization. The Great both were his henchmen, mounted on son's insinuations . The apparent sincer- City by the Lake has symbolically jackasses, dressed as the "Crazy Judge" ity of the candidate, and the social and moved and is bound for and "Artie-with the greasy neck ." civic leaders he was able to command Fort Leavenworth . "Thompsonism" was used by the op- as supporters proved the dominant fac- position to signify the cancerous growth tors in his winning the election . of graft and corruption so prevalent in The highlight of the campaign was Faculty notes the city hall . By the followers of Big reached when Thompson secured, by Bill "Thompsonism" was elaborately hook or crook, the obituary written for Doctor Roy Gittinger, dean of ad- portrayed in a handsome rotogravure the Tribune and set into type when it ministration, underwent an operation at as signifying the skyscrapers, the parks, was rumored that the mayor was at the university hospital in Oklahoma the schools and all things worth while death's door during the preceding Nov- City November 3 . He suffered the dis- in Chicago. Thompson took credit for ember. Thompson appeared on the plat- location of his right elbow in a car everything. No shrinking violet is he. form with the proof sheets of the ob- accident last summer and in order The result of the primary confirmed ituary containing half-praise and doubt that the use of his arm be restored, an early estimates . Thompson's plurality ful praise and compared the phrases operation on the elbow joint was nec- over Lyle was 70,000. Albert polled contained in the obituary with the essary . The operation was successful about 100,000 votes. Lyle and Albert to- latest statements from the "world's and Doctor Gittinger has returned to gether polled about 30,000 votes more than greatest newspaper ." The result set the his office . the mayor. It was evident then that Bill multitude into hysterics . In its final Dr Alfred B . Thomas, associate pro- would lose the election if harmony was sprint the Thompson pageant became fessor of history, is at work arranging not restored in the Republican ranks. the lowest of low campaigns, the may- the annual program of the Southwest- In such a situation "harmony dinners" or rendered secure his position as the ern Political Science association history and "love-fasts" are commonly used greatest buffoon in politics . The final section, of which he is chairman .