World's Fair Mayor

Chicago last week decided to change Mayors. It voted out Republican William Hale ("Big Bill") Thompson after three blustering terms in city hall, voted in Democrat Anton Joseph ("Tony") Cermak. The Cermak majority was 200,000. In line with Press polls which plainly foreshadowed the defeat of "Thompsonism," the second city of the land had chosen a onetime pushcart peddler, Bohemian-born, to preside at its World's Fair in 1933. His biggest promise: "Restoration of Chicago's lost reputation."

Chicago's new Mayor used to lead mules in Illinois coal mines. About Chicago he peddled wood, went into the trucking business, bought real estate, waxed rich. He served as state legislator, president of the Cook County Board, president of the Forest Preserve Commission, Chairman of the Democratic County Committee. He was defeated for the U. S. Senate in 1928.

A police raid on City Hall opened the final heated week of the Thompson-Cermak campaign. Detectives from the State's Attorney's office seized records of the City Sealer, charged Thompson henchmen with an "organized system of cheating, shortweighing and shakedown" among Chicago fish dealers. Roared the Mayor: "A plot! A plot!"

Mayor Thompson issued a breath-taking broadside against his old foe, the Chicago Tribune. Prepared as a 16-page folder in rotogravure by the advertising firm of Conine & Millner, one million copies were distributed to voters. Its caption: "The Tribune Shadow -- Chicago's Greatest Curse." The gist of the Thompson argument within was that the Tribune, by discrediting Chicago's Mayor, had discredited Chicago and blighted its prosperity. The Mayor complained of the paper's "photographic lies" of him, contrasted Tribune pictures of himself with retouched studio portraits. "The Tribune's Lies Have Made the World Believe Chicago is the Crime Centre of America," screamed a double page headline. Col. Robert Rutherford McCormick, Tribune publisher, was pictured as patronizing Alphonse Capone, of promising the gangster "a square deal" in return for his averting a Tribune delivery truck strike. The greatest Thompson scoop was an unpublished Tribune obituary prepared last year when the Mayor was close to death (see p. 26). On the back page

"Tony and the Tribune" were artfully balanced against "Thompson and the People."

But Mayor Thompson's campaign lacked its usual street circus. He had wanted to parade a herd of fat swine through the Loop, each one labelled with a job his opponent already held, but his friends dissuaded him from such an exhibition. The Mayor then settled down to verbal abuse of Democrat Cermak. He called him "the biggest crook who ever ran for Mayor." He accused him of being anti-Irish, anti-German, anti-Polish, anti-Negro, anti-Catholic. He appealed for the support of "one hundred percenters" against "foreigners and hyphenaters" and in the next breath promised to "load the City Hall with Poles" if they supported him.

Democrat Cermak had the firm if not ardent support of such famed Chicagoans as William Ruggles Dawes, Silas Hardy Strawn, Julius Rosenwald and Frank Jo seph Loesch. He kept his campaign on a nice, colorless plane. He harped on police reform, aid to the jobless, reduced taxes. But voters took his promises at a discount because his own record was that of a routine politician who had risen to the top of his party. When Thompson assailed him as "that pushcart peddler," he promptly organized a parade of pushcart peddlers who vowed to vote for him. Plump and precise, bespectacled and benevolent, he kept repeating: "Chicago needs a business man for Mayor. . . . Take the circus from City Hall. . . . Chase away the grafters. . . . Bring honesty back into the Government. . . . Cut out its graft. . . . Stop the log-rolling."

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