Chicago Stop-gap

Only once before in its 100 years had Chicago been faced with such a problem as puzzled it last week. Without a Mayor, it had no legal way of getting one. No statute provided for succession or appointment. A special election could not be held before June. Swiftly the city's Democratic machine went into action.

First it had to choose a leader to fill the gap which Anton Joseph Cermak's death had left in the party organization. As expected, 70-year-old Patrick Austin Nash got the job as well as Cermak's place on the Democratic National Committee. A crony of the late Mayor and of Illinois Governor Henry Horner, he has been chairman of the Cook County Democratic Committee since 1931. Irish and crafty, always in a derby, he got his political education in the old school, under the late Boss Roger H. Sullivan.

Leader Nash did not wait long to show his hand. The City Council met to hear Corporation Counsel William H. Sexton's opinion on its power to elect a Mayor. He said it lacked such power. In the Morrison Hotel that afternoon Leader Nash gave Democratic councilmen his opinion: "I recommend for acting mayor Alderman Frank J. Corr of the 17th Ward. Now let's see if the new leadership will operate. Meeting's adjourned."

An hour later the Council met again. The loud protests of Democrat John S. Clark, insurgent opposition candidate, did him little good. Defeated on several test votes, he and his 16 supporters refused to vote in the final balloting. Nominee Corr was elected unanimously.

Chicago and Frank Joseph Corr were as surprised as were New York and John Patrick O'Brien last autumn when Tammany Boss Curry threw O'Brien into the mayoral gap left by Jimmy Walker. Said Acting Mayor Corr: "I didn't even know I was a candidate. . . . I have no feeling of elation." Outside his own ward, where he has been Democratic chairman for 25 years, few Chicagoans ever heard of him. Born in Brooklyn 56 years ago, he was taken to Chicago twelve years later, began practicing law there in 1899. He was Assistant Corporation Counsel from 1923 to 1931, is considered an expert on building & zoning laws. First elected to the City Council in 1931, he was called "independent, sincere, aggressive and a hard worker" by the Municipal Voters' League when he ran for reelection. Asked last week about his private life, he conservatively divulged that he likes to play golf, smokes too much.

Promising his party and city that he would not be a candidate in any special election, Acting Mayor Corr said he would adhere strictly to the Cermak policies of "economy, retrenchment and good government." Then he sat back to wait for the Legislature to confirm his dubious powers. With its employes still going unpaid, Chicago's most urgent need is for cash. Until the Legislature acts, Acting Mayor Corr's signature on $40,000,000 worth of tax anticipation warrants is worthless.

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