In Old Chicago

"It would appear from the first primary held since the defeat of President Roosevelt's Reorganization Bill that the dike is beginning to cave in."

This jaunty comment made by Chairman John D. M. Hamilton of the Republican National Committee was his summing up of the Illinois State primaries, which last week were the first in the huge tide of State elections that will send 435 Representatives and 34 Senators to Washington this autumn.

It was true that some Roosevelt coattail riders got short rides. But since the total number of Republican votes cast was so small that it was virtually ignored by the public, Chairman Hamilton's remark was characteristically optimistic. The Illinois primary was chiefly significant to Illinois, and since 1933 the time-honored complexities of Illinois politics have had, as their central theme, the struggle for State control between Democratic Governor Henry Horner and Chicago's Democratic Kelly-Nash machine. Last week victories of his two candidates for Senator and county judge made it look as though Governor Horner had finally won.

Lucas v. Igoe. Illinois' downstate Senator William Dieterich got himself elected on the same ticket as Chicago's Henry Horner in 1932, has since distinguished himself in Illinois by attempting unsuccessfully to swing the downstate vote away from his former running mate when Governor Horner ran for re-election in 1936. In Washington he has voted consistently for the New Deal, but last winter any hope Franklin Roosevelt might have entertained to reward Mr. Dieterich's loyalty was thwarted. Governor Horner and Chicago's Mayor Edward Joseph Kelly paid separate visits to the White House, each to say that this year he would support not Dieterich but a candidate of his own choice. Result was that Mr. Dieterich regretfully decided not to run. Governor Homer's entry was an amiably conservative downstate Congressman named Scott Lucas. To oppose Mr. Lucas, Mayor Kelly and Cook County's Democratic Committee Chairman Patrick Nash chose Michael Igoe, a seasoned Irish politician whom Franklin Roosevelt had appointed U. S. District Attorney in 1935.

In the campaign that followed, Candidate Igoe made the most of whatever degree of White House partiality was shown by the facts that Assistant Attorney General Joe Keenan journeyed to Illinois to speak on his behalf and that pink-whiskered Senator James Hamilton Lewis gave him his public support. Candidate Lucas, who voted against Roosevelt on the Wages-&-Hours Bill, parried by sticking to the local issue of "Throw out the Bosses." In last week's balloting, as early reports came in from the metropolitan districts, Candidate Igoe rolled up an impressive lead of 70,000 votes which began to dwindle as downstate returns poured in. Final count in one of the closest Illinois primaries on record showed Mr. Lucas ahead by about 760,000 votes to his opponent's 712,000.

Jarecki v. Prystalski In the struggle for State control, the Kelly-Nash machine's greatest asset for the last five years has been its ability to deliver the Cook County vote practically intact. Cook County election machinery is in charge of its county judge, who for the last 16 years has been a nervous-looking gentleman of Polish extraction named Edmund K. Jarecki. Despite his invaluable assistance in years past, Messrs. Kelly and Nash this year found that internal considerations made it advisable to drop Judge Jarecki from the ticket, run a rival Pole, a circuit court judge named John Prystalski, for his office. Judge Jarecki's reply to this slight was a prompt announcement that he would run anyway, independently if necessary. It was not necessary. Governor Homer's faction, which has long been looking for some way to shake its rival's Cook County dominance, immediately saw in Judge Jarecki the answer to its prayer.

Judge Jarecki was still in charge of county election officers, and when vote counters finished their work last week, it showed that Messrs. Kelly & Nash had for the first time been roundly defeated--508,000-to-466,000--on their home ground. Net significance was a possibility that when Mr. Nash comes up for re-election as county Democratic chairman next week, he may be defeated; and that whether he is defeated or not, the Kelly-Nash machine--biggest and most powerful municipal political organization in the land since the defeat of Tammany--was definitely no longer anything of the sort.

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