"BIG BILL" GOES "BANG!”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 327, 12 April 1928, Page 8

"BIG BILL" GOES "BANG! ”

THE wholesale murders predicted for the Illinois State primary elections did not eventuate, the casualties being confined to the fatal shooting of one negro, six abductions, and some scattered acts of violence —quite an ordinary day for Chicago under the domination of “Big Bill” Thompson. What will interest the British public more is the rout of the forces captained by the violently anti-British Mayor of Chicago. His boast that he would have twenty delegates to do his bidding at the Bepublican Convention was as empty as his fulminations against all things British. Only eight of his minions were returned, whereas 55 delegates were elected to support the claims for the Presidency of Mr. Frank O. Lowden, formerly Governor of Illinois and the hated enemy of blatant “Big Bill.” Another blow for the Mayor of Chicago is the defeat of his friend, Colonel Frank Smith, as the Bepublican nominee for the Senate. The “Colonel” is the member elected to the Senate who was not permitted to take his seat because he too glaringly overdid the “expenses” business in securing election.

“Big Bill” himself was defeated for appointment as delegate to the Bepublican National Convention, and another of his friends, Mr. Crowe, the State Attorney-General, whose administration of justice has been a reproach even in the United States —where Justice too often stands for sale in the market place—is thought to have been defeated for office. “Big Bill” must be feeling somewhat smaller. The elections show that it was the “graff’-eorrupted minority which was making all the noise, and that the majority of the'electors of Illinois had still preserved reason and judgment amid all the tumult of the politically-degraded elements which followed such unworthy leaders as “Big Bill.” Sane Americans realise that insulting enmity toward Britain is as harmful as it is groundless; that it not only imperils the peace but is distinctly harmful to the nation’s trade.