CHICAGO'S PLIGHT

Like nearly all large cities, Chicago is grievously misgoverned;-but its misgovernment, being particularly insidious, deserves especial attention as a warning to the rest of the nation. Its mayor, "Big Bill," surnamed "The Big Bunk," is hardly more than a political moron, but his misgoverning hand is guided by Fred Lundin, one of the shrowdest craftsmen in American politics, who has built up an all-encompassing system under which nearly every employe pays tribute to the coffers of its chief;-a system which is yet to be defeated at the county polls.

Many such intricate machines have been organized in our ship of state, but none so subtle or so liable to detonate the powder magazine of "bolshevism" as this one. Mayor Thompson, like all demagogues, is a "protector of the peepul," and posing as such, has attacked nearly all forms of organized business in the city, especially the public utilities, and the "robber traction barons." His platform smacks rather of Lenine than of an American statesman. At a time when the utmost should be done to conciliate capital and labor, he is making Immoderate and uncalled for attacks on established business organizations, and is fostering the discontent of the "downtrodden" workman, perverting it to his own advantage. While emptying the city treasury to pay his henchmen as $100 a day "experts" (the city is literally "broke" as a result), he blames the vacant coffers on the "rich tax-dodgers."

With the holshevic tendencies of the Dakotas and Wisconsin well known, the red agitators are bending every effort to win Illinois and Minnesota, which would give them an unbroken stronghold through the center of the middle-west. Although Chicago's mayor is not admittedly pro-Bolshevic, but only pro-Thompson, many of his utterances, calculated to win votes, have sown broadcast the seed of labor dissension.

In fostering social unrest, Mayor Thompson is playing a game, which is dangerous not only to his "capitalistic" opponents, but to himself. If the Mayor attempts to spread his civic policy to the whole state and nation, as he now threatens, be may find he has started something which he cannot finish; the cause which he is nourishing may grow to such uncontrollable proportions as to plunge himself as well as his enemies into the slouch of anarchism. It is a situation which any friend of organized society, whether or not a citizen of Illinois, must look upon with apprehension and alarm.