Gangsters Prime Guns For Chicago Elections

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 324, 9 April 1928, Page 1

Gangsters Prime Guns For Chicago Elections

WHOLESALE MURDER SORDID POLITICAL BATTLE By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright, NEW YORK, Saturday. The “New York Herald-Tri-bune” publishes a remarkable dispatch contributed by a member of its staff who was sent to Chicago in connection with the Illinois primary election campaign. Ha says machine-guns and “pine-

apples,” as the residents playfully call bombs, may decide at the poll which is to be taken on Tuesday in Chicago ! which particular "gang” is going to harvest the £20,000,000 a year “graft” which it is estimated flows from liquor and gambling. Two armies of jobholders, hoodlums; gunmen, bootleggers, gamblers and just plain wastrels will do battle in the 50 wards which make up the city and in some of the outlying towns. BANNERS OF BATTLE One army will be fighting under the banner of the Mayor, Mr. William Thompson, the Republican Governor of Illinois, Mr. L. Small (who is battling for his political life), and the State attorney, Mr. Crowe, whose record in stamping out crime in America’s second city has aroused no envy in other communities. The other army will fight under the banner of the Republican Senator, Mr. C. S. Deneen, and Mr. Louis Emmerson, a candidate for the Republican nomination as. Governor against Mr. Small. Wholesale murder is confidently pre dieted on both sides, says the cqrrespondent. No one is quite sure of the outcome, though the betting seems to favour the slightly better organised side of Mr. Thompson. One Judge has been given authority by the Supreme Court to send to gaol, without the possibility of his release on bail, anyone whom he believes to be guilty of vote manipulation. This Judge has sworn in 3,000 deputies who have power to arrest anyone on suspicion. This may reduce stolen voter from 5,000, to 25,000. ARMIES OF GUNMEN

The rival beer gangs, gambling mobs and alcohol smugglers, have developed such armies of gUn-fighters. machine-gpn operators and bomb throwers that the rates charged Co: murders have dropped considerably. The murder of any ordinary person can. be arranged at a fee of £4O, and there is considerable competition as to who shall secure the contract. However, this situation, which apparently affects only the Republican Party, is complicated. There are wheels within wheels, and it is sometimes a knotty problem for an honest gunman to just know whom to shoot for the benefit of his employer.—A. and N.Z.