(3 of 5)
hammer & tongs on the income tax issue in an attempt to smoke him
out of office. The Mayor of New York by common consent holds the third
most important elective office in the U.S.— If he is able and
ambitious he may be chosen Governor of the State, from which office it
is but one long step to the White House. He greets more distinguished
foreigners, delivers more speeches, lays more cornerstones, makes
more important news than any other U.S. mayor. The Mayor of the
nation's second city— hustling, bustling, brawling, sprawling
Chicago—should by rights rank next to the Mayor of New York in
national prestige and power. But he does not. He governs the most
thoroughly American city in the land, a polyglot metropolis that began
as a cast-off of the East as the East began as a cast-off of Europe.
Chicago's chuffing, puffing yards constitute the railroad centre of
the U.S. It holds the U.S. grain trade in its pits. Its stockyards
are unmatched. In its grimy lap are a multitude of noisy industries
(steel, cement, farm machinery, railroad supplies, foundry products,
band instruments). Its mail order business reaches into the tiniest
towns. In its convention halls more U.S. Presidents have been
nominated than in any other city in the land. Its Negro population
exceeds that of Kentucky. Above its enormous immigrant foundation is a
socialite crust that knows wealth, culture, good living. It has opera,
music, art, museums to offset its physical crudities. It is strong,
lusty, loud and ambitious. Many a Chicagoan confidently predicts that
his city will soon surpass New York in size and importance, become
"The Paris of the West." Yet in the matter of mayors,
Chicago has not kept pace with its other manifestations of greatness.
Irish son of an Irish policeman, Edward Joseph Kelly was born 57 May
Days ago on Chicago's West 38th Street. At 17 he got a job as axman
with the Sanitary District then building the Drainage Canal near his
home. Later he was toughened in the rough frontier town of Lemont, Ill.
where Negro workmen, when killed on the job, were dumped on the rock
pile and covered up with canal excavations. By industry and
intelligence Kelly became a good practical engineer, a good practical
politician with the Sanitary District. His first wife died in 1918.
Four years later he married a woman 15 years his junior. In 1925 his
14-year-old son, an only child, died after a mastoid operation at
Culver Military Academy, whereupon the Kellys adopted three youngsters.
For summers they bought a big, airy place on a lake near Eagle River,
Wis., spent their winters in a remodeled colonial brick home on Ellis
Avenue. In 1922 Ed Kelly, in addition to his job as the Sanitary
District's chief engineer, was appointed to the South Park Board, soon
became its president. Under him Grant Park and the outer highway system
were developed, the Stadium completed, the old Fine Arts building in
Jackson Park restored for the Rosenwald Museum of Science &
Industry. If George Brennan had lived, that shrewd old Democratic boss
might well have run his good friend Kelly for an important municipal
job. As it was, Engineer Kelly lived well, played golf, enjoyed his
friends, kept out of the limelight until— May 30, 1930 was a black
day for Ed Kelly. Along with the other trustees of the Sanitary
District he was indicted for bribery and conspiracy to defraud
taxpayers out of
