JUDGMENT DAY IN CHICAGO

Perhaps no city in America today presents so pitiful a spectacle of collapse as does Chicago. A few years ago it was a prosperous, arrogant and supremely lawless city, unashamed of its past, confident of the future. The beginnings of decline which were evident even then, were ignored by both citizens and government. Those were the great days of William Hale Thompson, Chicago's illustrious mayor. Swept into office on the highly pertinent policy of "America First," he offered a three-ring circus rather than a government. Mr. Capone and his boys had their notoriety, but the spotlight was the mayor's whenever he wanted it. His character interpreted the momentary character of the city, and if the finances went to pieces in the meantime, he was still a sufficient symbol. When he finally lost, not to a stronger candidate so much as to a bigger machine, somebody had stolen the props from the structure of government, but the show had been a grand one.

Today, Chicago's collapse is so complete that its school-teachers are faced with the ironical prospect of taking a reduction in a salary which is not being payed to them anyway. The police force is still retained at full pay, but rumor has it that they may well be disbanded. There is not much left to steal. The crooks are gradually being driven from the city by starvation. Occasionally children in the grade schools faint from hunger.

Meanwhile the flamboyant Mr. Thompson is strangely taciturn. When defeated for re-election, he was reported to have left for the South Seas in his private yacht, to hunt for flying fish. In one form or another, catching fish has always been Mr. Thompson's hobby. The once-mighty Capone is contemplating the stripes in his new suit, while his henchmen maintain bread-lines from the profit of their labors. The city has six hundred fifty thousand unemployed, and a financial Gordian knot which has yet to find its Alexander. Whatever its future may bring, history will record that in the decade which has just closed Chicago was preeminent for public vulgarity, organized corruption and imbecility in high place.