High & Crooked

Once there was a pudgy-faced newsboy on Chicago's West Side. His name was William Lorimer. His tactics were questionable but he moved fast--bootblack, sign painter, street car conductor, "boss" of Chi- cago Republicanism, banker, U. S. Senator. The higher he rose, the fatter he grew and the more crooked became his methods. In 1912 the Senate ejected him for having obtained his seat by bribery. In 1914 his La Salle Street Trust and Savings Bank crashed; seven years later he was put in jail because the Government found his banking schemes fraudulent. In 1922 he saw two boys* that he had trained in the political arts thrown out of power in Chicago.

Last week word got about that William Lorimer had returned quietly to Chicago from the Republic of Colombia where he had proposed to develop that nation's resources with his Colombia-American Syndicate. Incidentally, he hoped to regain his own fortunes. His venture had failed. Perhaps word of his La Salle Street Bank had been whispered in Colombia, and the wary Latin-Americans had demanded cash in advance.

*William Hale Thompson the horn-blowing mayor, and Fred Lundin, the silent man with the black glasses. The only member of the Lorimer- Thompson-Lundin gang left in power is Lennington Small, Governor of Illinois.