"Well, there's one thing about Big Bill Thompson," Chicagoans are wont to say, "and that is that he never grafted."
Last week the Mayor of Chicago was declared guilty, with six other men, of conspiring to defraud Chicago of $1,732,-279.23. Judge Hugo Friend of the Circuit Court wrote the decision, ordered the Mayor and his fellows to restore the boodle.
The case dated back to 1920-21, when Mayor Thompson and his friends (many of whom have since been his enemies) were making themselves popular by making Chicago beautiful. To widen streets and boulevards, they had to buy land. To buy land they had...