BIG BILL THOMPSON SUED FOR £50,000

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 295, 5 March 1928, Page 11

BIG BILL THOMPSON SUED FOR £50,000

STOOL PIGEON’S” REPLY By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. CHICAGO, Friday. The Superintendent of Schools, Mr. William McAndrew, whose dispute with the Board of Education led to Mayor Thompson’s “America First” campaign, has filed a libel suit for £50,000 against “Big Bill” Thompson, charging him with defamation of character. He has stated that, if he wins, he will give the money to charity.—A. and N.Z. „ According to a report from Chicago on October 25, an American Fascist organisation called the “America First” Foundation was formed to further advance the anti-British projects of the Mayor of Chicago, Mr. William Thompson. The objects of the new body were said to be “to improve citizenship and to taboo sectarianism and racial differences.” During his campaign Mr. Thompson carried about with him a wire cage containing two rats of the giant species nurtured in the Chicago stockyards. He gave them the names of two of his opponents and in his harangues, while denouncing those opponents, addressed himself to the rodents as personifying them All his adversaries he characterised as “thieves,” “crooks,” ‘'‘grafters,” “liars,” “skunks,” “rats” and “scoundrels.” He devised a special epithet for the superintendent of schools, Mr. William McAndrew, whom he called “the stool-pigeon of King George.” A repeated cry of the Mayor is that he wants to keep the King of England’s “nose out of America.”