National Affairs: Cowardly Chicago

CITIES & TOWNS

For two weeks a band of Chicago officials and businessmen have toured the Southwest, orating on Chicago’s virtues, deprecating her vices. They call themselves The Good-Will Trade Tour. As they approached Tulsa, Okla., last week, an editorial captioned “Cowardly Chicago” appeared in the Tulsa Tribune. It said:

“Chicago is the sickest city in America. Chicago is disgustingly stupid. . . . Chicago can’t create a great [World’s] fair. Chicago isn’t big enough to arrest and protect Chicago’s own society from the vicious operations of one little Al Capone. Chicago collectively is a municipal coward that no longer deserves the respect of a civilized world.”

In reply, Chicago’s City Treasurer Charles Simeon Peterson, one of the Good-Will Tourists, told the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce: “I authorized the opening of bids for the first building of the World’s Fair. . . . This contract when signed will call for the erection of a $350,000 Administration building. . . . first unit of a $4,000,000 program we will execute in 1930.” Admitting that Chicago spends $30,000,000 yearly on liquor, half of which is in bribes and pay for professional assassins, he announced that the city is only 39th in the U. S. Census Bureau’s murder rating. “Furthermore,” said he, “we haven’t missed those done away with very badly.”