William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson (14 May 1869-19 March 1944) was Mayor of Chicago from 3 November 1915 to 3 November 1923 (succeeding Carter Harrison, Jr. and preceding William Emmett Dever) and from 3 November 1927 to 3 November 1931 (succeeding Dever and preceding Anton Cermak). A member of the Republican Party, he was the last Republican to hold mayoral office in Chicago as of the 2020s, and he was known for his open alliance with Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone and his populist and xenophobic campaign style.
Biography[]
William Hale Thompson was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1869, and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois when Thompson was nine days old. Instead of attending Yale University, he moved to Wyoming to become a cowboy and cattle owner, and he took up ranching in Texas and New Mexico. In 1892, he returned to Chicago to manage his father's estates after his death, and he was nicknamed "Big Bill" during his participation in athletic clubs.
In 1900, he was elected alderman for Chicago's 2nd Ward, and, in 1902, he became a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. In 1915, he was elected Mayor of Chicago as the Republican candidate, and he charged city drivers and inspectors $3 a month with the hope of funding a future presidential campaign. His opposition to US participation in World War I weakened his 1918 US Senate run, but he was re-elected in 1919 with the support of African-American voters. He looked towards drastically expanding Chicago, and he declined to run for re-election in 1923 due to poor health and a corruption scandal involving some of his associates. However, he ran again in 1927 amid a citywide gang war, and Al Capone's Chicago Outfit threw grenades at polling places to disrupt voting, helping Thompson win re-election. In addition, Thompson ran a right-wing populist campaign against his Democratic rival William Emmett Dever, claiming that Dever was part of a British conspiracy to re-educate American children to hate the American Revolution, and promising to end the enforcement of Prohibition, which earned him the support of many of Chicago's "white ethnic" communities (the prime victims of the Beer Wars). However, his failure to clean up Chicago's reputation as the capital of organized crime and his xenophobia shown towards the Democratic Party politician Anton Cermak during his 1931 re-election bid alienated Chicagoan voters, and Thompson's political career was ruined. He died in 1944, and the discovery of $1.8 million in his name in cash and bonds (now $26.7 million worth) after his death ensured that his name would forever be associated with corruption.