Day 225: Filth, Corruption, Obscenity, Idiocy, and Bankruptcy

     Chicago(and to a greater extent the state of Illinois) has a very rich history of being one of the most corrupt places in this great nation.  However, when looking over the decades upon decades of Chicago-style politics, who seems like the worst offender to you? Is it George Ryan, hands bloodied by the deaths of 6 children?  Is it Rod Blagojevich, who tried to sell an "f*&%ing golden" Senate seat?  Is it Richard J. Daley, who advocated the police as a means of preserving disorder?  Actually, it is none of the above.  The epitome of Chicago's corrupt past did his dirty work long before any of the aforementioned men were around.

     William Hale Thompson was born in Boston in 1869.  When he was only 9 days old, his family moved to Chicago. Fast-forward through nomadic cross-country moves, a trip to Europe for self-discovery, and the death of his father, and we come up for air in 1900, when he started off his career in politics by narrowly winning election as the 2nd Ward Alderman.  A decade and a half later he is elected the 41st Mayor of Chicago.  Once mayor, he instituted a surcharge on city workers in order to amass a war chest for a future Presidential run.  One of the biggest events that happened in his first term was the Race Riot of 1919, which witnessed Thompson's initial refusal to accept National Guard troops into the city merely to spite the Governor.  (In an interesting side note, Richard J. Daley was a member of an ethnic Irish 'gang' at the time of the riot. Furthermore, Daley never completely denied rumors that he had been party to the bullying of the city's blacks in that incident.)  He stepped down in 1923, though he stayed in the public eye through a phony scientific expedition.

     Thompson ran once again amidst a gang war in 1927, an election that saw him pull such stunts as debating two live rats and threatening to punch the King of England in the nose.  Additionally, he openly courted the support of Al Capone, even going so far as to accept a $250,000 donation from the man.  This brand of gangland politics continued after Thompson was elected, as shown by the Pineapple Primary(a sideshow unto itself which featured rampant violence before and after the Primary) which ushered even more of Thompson's men into power. Also, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre happened on Thompson's watch. He failed in his quest to secure the GOP's nomination for the 1928 Presidential race, which he then blamed on the sister-in-law of the publisher of the Chicago Tribune.

     In 1931, Anton Cermak ran against Thompson for the Mayorship, and Thompson proceeded to run a campaign that probably was one of the most racist ones ever run.  To give you an idea, one of his campaign ditties had him saying that Cermak's name was too ethnic for it to work as a Mayor's last name.  Fed up with his tomfoolery, the citizens of Chicago unceremoniously dumped Thompson in favor of Cermak.  In one final twist, two safe deposit boxes were found upon Thompson's death that contained close to $1.5 Million in cash.  One more thing: the title for this entry comes from an editorial that ran in the Tribune after Thompson's defeat.