National Affairs: In Illinois

(See front cover)

Out of the jabberwocky that is politics in the State of Illinois there issued last week a frabjous thing that was supposed to spell R-e-f-o-r-m but which, upon closest inspection, would not come any closer to real sense than Roefmr or Mrrofe. The letters were all there. Popular sentiment had been convulsively aroused. But the newly upheaved anagram did not articulate intelligently.

The occasion for the upheaval was the Illinois primary election. Among the Democrats, nothing extraordinary happened. Their party was out of power and they quietly went to the polls to nominate candidates whom they scarcely hoped to elect next autumn unless Candidate Smith, for whom they meant the State's 58 uninstructed national delegates, can carry all before him.

Among the Republicans, it was a spectacular primary even for spectacular Illinois. It was the Republicans who tried to spell Reform. About 100,000 Democrats got excited and joined in the G. O. P. melee, confusing things more than ever. The Republican primary had the following results and implications:

Governor. Lennington Small, the Governor, was overwhelmingly defeated for renomination by Louis L. Emmerson, who had been Secretary of State, since 1916. Mr. Small's reputation had been thoroughly discredited. Trying to save himself he entered alliance with his oldtime enemy, Mayor William Hale ("Big Bill") Thompson of Chicago. Mr. Emmerson ran as a champion of virtue—yet Mr. Emmerson was for years a Small henchman and it was he who passed the checks to some Missouri delegates in 1920, causing the scandal that deprived Frank Orren Lowden of that year's presidential nomination.

Senator. Frank Leslie Smith, the U. S. Senator-elect whom the U. S. Senate declared unseatable last winter, was thrust still farther aside by Otis F. Glenn, a young downstate lawyer. But Mr. Glenn's backer, hero of the great R-e-f-o-r-m movement, was thick-lensed U. S. Senator Charles Samuel Deneen, who, only a few months ago, was in league to get Smith seated. This shift was but one of the inconsistencies in Champion Deneen's campaign.

Chicago. In the city whose name has been a synonym for social war and political billingsgate, Champion Deneen warred upon Robert E. Crowe, the State's attorney of Leopold-Loeb fame and Mayor Thompson's entourage. Deneen and his candidate, Judge John A. Swanson, survived bombs exploded on their doorsteps and routed Crowe utterly. Mayor Thompson had vowed to resign if this happened but, of course, did not resign. The Small-Smith-Thompson-Crowe slogan, "America First," was as thoroughly exposed as the Ku Klux Klan. Libel suits and coroner's inquests were on Thompsonism's hands after the polls closed. But still the Thompson machine retained enough city patronage to make "America First" worth while until it is actually run out of town. Perhaps that will not happen before 1931, the next mayoral election. Meantime, more credit for Crowe's defeat was due to Judge Swanson himself, and to Chicago's loud-shouting newspapers, than to Champion Deneen.

Congressmen. The Congressional nominations of the G. O. P. in Illinois had four points of interest and here the jabberwockian confusion was at its height.