Chicago’s finances have long been sickly. Last year the treasury ran dry; payrolls looked papery; the city had to borrow $280,000,000 on future taxes. When bankers refused further advances, experts whittled out an “economy” budget for 1930. The whittlings: 2,153 city employes.
Before the City Council last week appeared Chicago’s Mayor William Hale (“Big Bill”) Thompson. Sweepingly he vetoed two-thirds of the lean budget. Sweepingly he absolved his administration of blame for the fiscal fix, put the blame on real estate revaluators.* Generously he proposed a budget greater by $6,313,000 than Chicago’s estimated 1930 revenue, demanded reinstatement of 1,502 employes. Galleries crammed with jobless Thompson men roared with applause when the City Fathers failed to override this program.
For nearly a week Chicago had been shy 473 policemen, 224 firemen, 1,400 other employes. Alarmed citizens forecast dire results: uncollected garbage, unshoveled snow, unquenched fires, uncaught criminals. Underwriters spoke of higher insurance rates. To thicken the fiscal fog. however, City Treasurer Charles S. Peterson, self-styled “Custodian of the City Deficit,” reported that there was no money in the treasury to meet a Jan. 20 payroll of $3,500,000.
* Because of adjustments demanded by taxpayers, no real estate taxes have been paid in Cook County for 20 months.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- L.A. Fires Show Reality of 1.5°C of Warming
- Home Losses From L.A. Fires Hasten ‘An Uninsurable Future’
- The Women Refusing to Participate in Trump’s Economy
- Bad Bunny On Heartbreak and New Album
- How to Dress Warmly for Cold Weather
- We’re Lucky to Have Been Alive in the Age of David Lynch
- The Motivational Trick That Makes You Exercise Harder
- Column: No One Won The War in Gaza
Contact us at letters@time.com