the regard of other laws. Because of his resolution to uphold the law, Dever became nicknamed "Decent Dever" by the press. Dever launched a major law-enforcement campaign to crack-down on bootlegging. The media labeled his war on bootleggers as the "Great Beer War". By the end of the year, within only one hundred days of the inauguration of this effort, Chicago was being hailed as the "driest" city in the nation. Dever's "Great Beer War" had earned him immense national recognition. Some national media sources speculated he might be a potential dark horse candidate for president of the United States. At the 1924 Democratic National Convention he received serious discussion as a potential vice-presidential nominee. By the end of 1924, media sources discussed him as a serious contender for the Democratic nomination for president in 1928. As Chicago began to dry up, gangs of bootleggers had come into greater competition with one another. By early 1925, this led to the eruption of a massive gangland war. While the vast majority of Chicagoans opposed Prohibition, they had initially supported his tactics to enforce the law. However, subsequent to the onslaught of severe gang violence, the public quickly soured on it. His tactics had also only been partially successful. While he had succeeded in organizing a city government which was largely committed to enforcing the law, other governments and their agencies, such as the county government, were still permissive towards bootlegging. Additionally, certain ward politicians and police captains were still making under-the-table deals with gangs. While Chicago acquired a reputation as a "crime capital", a survey by Andrew A. Bruce (whose findings were unveiled in January 1927), contrarily, found that Chicago had no more crime than twenty other American cities the study looked at (including Kansas City, Los Angeles, Memphis, and St. Louis). Infrastructure Dever's term in office saw many improvements to the city's infrastructure, including the completion of Wacker Drive, the extension of Ogden Avenue, the straightening of the Chicago River and the construction of the city's first airport, Municipal Airport. Schools As mayor, Dever generally kept the Chicago Board of Education independent from political interference. This was in contrast to Dever's predecessor, William Hale Thompson, under whose previous mayoralty the schools had been tarnished by politics and fraud. Early into his mayoralty, Dever appointed seven new members to the Chicago Board of Education. The Dever-shaped school board sought to find