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Chief effect of the Federation to date has been to win Milwaukee's Socialists a kiss of death from their city's tiny, impotent Communist Party. Mayor Hoan, who hates revolution and dictators with all his Midwestern soul, has vehemently disclaimed the Red endorsement. But William Randolph Hearst's Milwaukee Wisconsin News was screaming last week: "A MAJORITY OF MILWAUKEE WOMEN DO NOT INTEND TO LONGER' TOLERATE A COMMUNIST-ENDORSED CITY ADMINISTRATION! . . . COMMUNISTS WHO OPENLY DEMAND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FAMILY, THE HOME AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION!"
Next week, as it has been in every election since his first, it will be Dan Hoan against the field. After the Socialist landslide of 1910, Republicans and Democrats wangled through the Legislature a State law requiring municipal primaries and elections to be nonpartisan. No party designations may appear on ballots. Only the two biggest primary votegetters may compete in elections. Thus it is assured that every non-Socialist vote will be an anti-Socialist vote.
The Mayoral candidate behind whom anti-Hoan forces are massed is Joseph John Shinners, 54, a 6-ft. 4-in., 255-lb. Irish Democrat who was a first-rate rough-&-tumble policeman in Milwaukee's old days, went into the trucking-&-warehouse business in 1912 and since 1932 has been the able sheriff of Milwaukee County. A Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus and father of ten, Candidate Shinners is expected to draw a strong Catholic vote. He is also backed by the American Legion and the Nazi Friends of New Germany. Asked whether it is true that he never got past the fourth grade in school, he replies, "I'm still going to school." Though he admits that municipally-owned public utilities might be practical in small communities, he wants no reform in Milwaukee.
"The chief plank in my platform," says Candidate Shinners, ''is to coax big industries to come to Milwaukee and take people off the streets and keep them out of the penitentiaries."
Many a citizen who has never heard of Daniel Webster Hoan and his municipal achievements knows Milwaukee as a great brewing town, home of Pabst, Blatz, Miller and of Schlitz, "The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous." The current Socialist campaign slogan: KEEP MILWAUKEE FAMOUS.