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5· BIG BILL THOMPSON: THE "MODEL" POLITICIAN Douglas Bukowski The Honorable James E. Watson, Republican from Indiana, found himself in impressive company. Fellow senators William Borah, Robert LaFollette, and George Norris all were present, and, minding tradition, they consented to Watson 's request to insert a magazine article into. the Congressional Record. And so "Shall We Shatter the Nation's Idols in School Histories?" by Mayor William Hale Thompson of Chicago became part of the legacy of the 70th Congress. Later, the United States Printing Office made Thompson's remarks available in pamphlet form. 1 It was fitting that the thoughts ofBig Bill Thompson should reach the shelves of Harvard and the University of Chicago if only because his career thrived on contradiction. Thompson was the machine politician first elected on a harmony ticket with two Bull Moose Progressives, the nationally discredited figure courted by presidential candidates, and the alleged ally of Al Capone the Justice Department never prosecuted. After Thompson's death in 1944, the Federal Bureau of Investigation discreetly examined his safety deposit box in search of stolen securities, but J. Edgar Hoover could no more "catch" Thompson than did a generation of Chicago reformers and Democrats. When he was defeated for a fourth term in 1931, Big Bill bequeathed the electorate a final contradiction. For the next half-century, Chicagoans elected mayors who followed policies established by Thompson towards blacks, ethnics, and labor, the business and reform communities, and organized crime. Even Richard J. Daley was beholden, if not for a campaign style, then for the Thompsonfashioned image of the mayor as big builder.2 For the most part, critics have dismissed Thompson as a creature of the 1920s, more related to style than substance. He is the fat demagogue who appealed to the Germans and Irish with his tirades against the king of England. 61 DOUGLAS BUKOWSKI His contributions are of the type cited by Daniel J. Boorstin, a member of the go~getter decade who laid the foundation for all ofCapone's undertakings. The FBI, in a report on Chicago politics, was impressed enough with Harold F. Gosnell that it cited his Machine Politics, Chicago Model to note that Thompson was so much buffoonery. (The bureau did not read Gosnell closely; he over~ stated Thompson's mayoralty by eight years.) Accurate enough in themselves, these views ignore the social and political tensions Thompson exploited during his career, and they reduce the era's politics to rote stimulus-response. Rather, Thompson is best understood from the same perspective Joel Tarr used in his study ofBig Bill's mentor, William Lorimer. The Blond Boss, Tarr discovered, was a politician who attracted both the laborer and the businessman. IfThompson never learned the value ofprecinct-level organization from Lorimer, he did grasp the importance of coalition politics.3 The early Thompson was a fairly conventional politician. He faced Judge Harry Olson of the Municipal Court in the 1915 Republican primary. Olson had the organizational backing of ex-Governor Charles Deneen and the support of such Progressives as Jane Addams and Charles Merriam. Still, Thompson won. Rather than a Lorimer protege, voters saw a candidate who was physically attractive, spoke well, and knew the value of a good campaign song: "We want a cleaner city where the good can thrive and shine." In contrast , Olson came off as a drab reformer. With women about to vote in their. first mayoral election, he could do no better than praise the "sense of economy " they would bring to public life. As a model of good government, he held out the meatpacking industry. Thompson won by 2,325 votes with the largely black Second Ward contributing a 6,800-vote margin, but there was more to Olson's defeat than race. With what the Tribune termed a "laboratory exactness and chill efficiency," Olson transformed Thompson into an attractive candidate.4 With the help of manager Fred Lundin, Thompson carried that new-found legitimacy through the general election. He picked his words well as he promised a "square deal" for all party factions, Progressives included, and had Deneen and Edward Brundage-a second GOP factional leader-named to his managing committee. While Merriam refused to lend support, Thompson appealed to the middle-class and reform vote by promising to fight the excessive rates charged by Peoples Gas Company. In a show of factional support, Harry Olson and Charles Deneen spoke for the party candidate.) The Democrats failed to match that unity. Incumbent Carter Harrison...

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