The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-06-02
How Cermak Helped Thompson Hide Graft

1000 of its 10O0O men in 1880 and uses police
to smash meetings of the Communist Party in
front of the shop gates
Cermak knows how to coin money from his
political jobs. Although he never held a Job
paying more than $4,000 year his friends ad-
nit that Tony Cermak is worth over $1,000 900
They Flock TO Him.
Cermak had szeable gangster machine be-
fore he became mayor. Now all the gunner and
grafters who we're on the Thompson bandwagon
are quickly going over to Cermak's camp Ger
max is building an efficient grating machine
equivalent to Tammany Hall, and in many re-
spects even worse. Mauritz A. Hallgren writing
on the Cermak regime in Chicago in an article
in the Nation april %, 1880 entitled Chicago
Goes Tammany" says of the gangster drift to
Cermak:
81 have heard in the last few days from the
lips of more than one speakeasy proprietor
and more than one Capone henchman that far
from fearing anything in the way of genuine
Cermak offensive against the gangsters these
men actually supported Cermak on election
day in the belief that he is helpless to move
against them"
The Communist Party was ruled off the bal
lot for the 1881 mayoralty elections in Chicago.
This was done by agreement between the
Thompson clique and the Cermak group. otto
Wangerin, Communist candidate for mayor OF
Chicago, in an article in the Daily Worker ex-
posed the gangster connections of Cermak He
showed how all the A. F. of l.. union gangsters
who had not lined up with Thompson supported
the demagogy of Cermak.
among other things" Wangerin wrote Ger
max has organized Labor Union Club con-
sisting of about rs of the most notorious scab
officials and racketeer gangsters in the Chicago
Federation of Labor, among whom are Martin
Durkin, vice president of the Chicago Building
Trades, William Tabor of the street car mems
union (thuS showing that Cermak is making a
bid for the support of Sam INSULT, James D.
Ryan, secretary of the Sheet Metal Workers.
OF course, all this shows the unity of the big
bankers with the fascist officials of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor who have but one pur-
pose, and that is to carry the bosses program Of
more attacks on the living standards Of the
workers.
Don't Dare Talk About Yet"
On January Is, 1884, detectives raided the Rex
Hotel in Chicago and found two safes full Of
records linking police politicians and capitalist
officials with crime, which even the callous
Chicago grafters called Astounding" These
records were never made public because, like
the Rothstein documents and the zuta poison
box they named capitalist politicians bankers
and rich exploiters who control the government
and who have enough power to destroy any such
evidence However, we get good inkling Of
what was in these two safes by the following
description from the New York Times on jan
uary 10, 1881:
"These records cast shadow of suspicion into
every branch of government In Cook County and
even into the halls of Congress. They showed
illicit dealings between Capone gangsters and
policemen, politicians and public officials in
Guiding what they described as names we don't
even dare talk about yet" The names they
don't even dare talk about" are the exploiters
who wiring profits out Of the workers, cut wages
and yelp fo- war against the Soviet Union.