"Joe McGoo"

The two most important municipal elections of the week were in the country's two biggest cities. In New York, the solemn farce of electing a heavy-jowled old Surrogate named John Patrick O'Brien to fill out the remaining year of the Mayoral term of James John ("Jimmy") Walker, discredited and resigned, was relieved by one touch of decency. In a sense far purer than the President-elect, so many of whose votes were against Hoover rather than for Roosevelt, the hero of the entire election was Joseph ("Holy Joe") McKee, the able, honest little Bronx Irishman who has been Acting Mayor of New York since Walker quit and who will continue as such until Jan. 1.

Despite the fact that Tammanyites contrived to make pencils scarce, and that the blank slots of many voting machines would not pull back, and that many voters were not tall enough to reach, and that many who did were too illiterate to write legibly, no less than 137,538 voters wrote in Mr. McKee's name on the Mayoral ballot. When deprived of the regular Democratic nomination, he had firmly discountenanced a "McKee Anyway" movement. But the voters wanted him to know how they wanted him. Tallying their votes was difficult. They spelled his name 78 different ways. Worst example: "Joe McGoo."

Chicago's important election was that of a new State's Attorney. Running on his unimpressive record was Republican John A. Swanson, the incumbent. Chicago's "Secret Six" (vigilantes) cost him many votes by charging that he had received campaign funds from notorious roadhouses, and that he was not nearly so anxious to prosecute gangsters as he sounded. Swept into the office was a 38-year-old State Senator named Thomas J. Courtney. Youngest State's Attorney Chicago ever had, he will take office Dec. 1.

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