GANGSTER LAND

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 71, 20 September 1930, Page 13

GANGSTER LAND

A PEEP AT CHICAGO

DOMINANT UNDERWORLD

SUBSIDISED" POLICE

.Most Europeans, when they think of Chk-ago, imagine a city whoso streets incessantly resound with the rattle of miichiiic-gnns/ as the gangsters fight their niiniaturo wars, or slay citizens for the mero pleasure of seeing them drop and squirm. But, like so many other European ideas of America, this one is more picturesque than accurate, 'flic' overwhelming majority of Chicago's "citizens have never seen a givigster and never will, from the clay of their birth in a white-tiled hospital ioor> until they die properly at home .iv bed, on the thirty-thiTd floor of the De Luxe Apartment Hotel, says the "Manchester Guardian." They never hear a gun,' except in a shooting gallery or when they go hunting in the wilds of Wisconsin. Few of them ever see the results of a bomb explosion. Por' them all the city's .picturesque and disgraceful crime exists only, as it does for other people, in the columns of the Press, with one little - exception—that is, that these good and sober citizens are responsible for nearly all of this ciime, when they insist on violating the Prohibition Law. For if it were not for tlie bootleggers, and the "hijacker?" who prey upon them, Chicago's violence;' would not be a tenth of what ,it J!>. MANY MURDERS. On the day on which I write, there have been forty-two homicides in Chica«o since Ist January, 1930. One or two of these are honest citizens killed iiccidi." -illy because they happened to get i he way when gangsters v were "slioov.ni;>- it out" in the. streets; but each of the others was a bad character done to death by his enemies for some violation of the^code of the underworld. One murder this year seemed at first To be. an exception to this rule—that of Alfred Lingle, the. ■ reporter on the . Chicago "Tribune," who was shot from behind while walking through a pedestrian tunnel in the heart of the city and in broad daylight. It was speedily , discovered, however, that Lingle's jour- ] nalistio activities were but a disguise for his real' duties, which were those of '■ liaison officer between gangsters and police. His income, instead of being & 13 a week as the newspaper supposed, ■ was something like £.13,000/ a year. , Gaugsters paid' him huge sums to prevent interference by the police in their ; activities; among his employers was Mr. "Searface" Al. Capone, who is supposed to have handed over Lingle the ' bribery money'by which thepolice were j persuaded to look the other way when j large sums were gambled at his dogracing track. The City Council, roughly < the equivalent of ,a board of aldermen, 1 is now investigating the Police Depart- ' nienfc. to see who is implicated. WEEKLY BRIBES. , If its investigation were honest and thorough, it would find that nearly everyone is implicated. "Well:informed ! Chicagoans are convinced that the j whole city government, from' top to i bottom, is closely allied with the forces of the underworld. As in every other ■ large American city, there are thous- j ands of speakeasies and "beer flats," different. varieties of secret (and, of course, illegal) public-houses. ' These institutions pay weekly bribes to the j police.: So do the gambling dens, the houses of ill-fame, and certain of the "racketeers" who make a highly profitable living by blackmailing labour i unions and small tradesmen. The ex- ] pert of the "Chicago Daily News," who , ought to know, estimates the gross , income of these various enterprises at < £1,200,000 a week. Bootlegging comes '. first, with £700,000 a week, gambling i is worth £250,000,, prostitution £200,- ! 000, and the racketeers get £50,000 or so. . ' * 1

These are large sums—perhaps too large—though Certainly the man who makes the estimate is better qualified to do so than is, any outsider to say lie is wrong. But cut the amount in two, ana it is still large enough to be a formidable force in a town which a hundred years ago was a wilderness trading post, one which has always had some of the large carelessness of the frontier. It is a polyglot community which to-day has many thousands of Tmassimilated foreigners in its midst, including-South Italians, who still preserve the Mafia after it has been\stampcd out, in Sicily, and first generation children of immigrants from.;'every country of Europe, defiant of their "greenhorn" parents and ideal material for the gang. . PRIVATE ARMIES. ; The sum is large enough to pay the small but well-equipped private armies which the bootleggers provide for their own safety since the shield of the law was withdrawn from their business with the enactment of national Prohibition. The underworld can and does maintain something of a Court system of its own, where offenders are actually given a rough trial of sorts and executed if found guilty. The funds they have available are also enough to influence powerfully the city's own Court system, so that there is a shocking record of guilty men set free by Magistrates or even by higher Courts.

Many gangsters boast that no policeman, dares arrest them or that no Judge and jury 'dare find them guilty, and some of these boasts, at least, are well founded. There are also numerous instances of men who have been found guilty of serious crimes, up to homicide, and sent to prison' for long terms, who have been mysteriously released, either by parole or pardon, 3fter serving but a brief part of their sentences.

PROFESSIONAL SLAYERS,

As I have mentioned before in your columns, nearly all the gangsters who do the actual killing arc young Jews or Italians of the second generation in America. They slip out of tho authority of their non-English speaking parents and in early youth join the juvenile gangs of the streets, graduating at the mature ago of 18 or 20 into professional slayers, t who will shoot a man for SlO, their emotions being engaged neither for nor against . their victim. Many of them arc- "hop-heads" (narcotic addicts), the favourite drugs being cocaine and heroin, and usually their worst exploits arc committed while at least partially under the influence of one or another of these drugs. But, as I. have suggested, all this sinister life of the underworld goes on without eyer touching that of the good citizens of Chicago. Their municipal rates are made higher by the inefficiency and corruption of their government, hut they have no standard of comparison, and if they had they would probably not take the matter too seriously as long as the sum was only a few dollars for tho average individual.

NO ONE CARES.

They pay out all the vast amounts spent'on liquor, for gambling, and for oilier forms of illicit amusement, but they do not seem (o mind the fact that they are thus making all this tremen(l mis development of the lmderworia possible. To the eye of the casual visitor Chicago, is far from, being an iin<-iviliserl place Its newspapers aro

inferior to those of Now York, but superior to those of any other American community (with a few individual exceptions like the Baltimore "Sun" or tho St. Louis "Post-Dispatch"). It has an admirable grand opera company, housed in a truly marvellous new opera house; a Museum of Art with a wide and deserved reputation; two great universities, one of which is of the first rank, and tho usual complement of theatres, orchestras, and the other indices of civilisation.

The culture of great sky-scrapers, ■boulevards, parks, line homes, and happy and sophisticated people is superimposed upon that; of murderers, gamblers, bootleggers, Iho donors and recipients of bribes. These two cultures communicate^ lml. they ?i.re not. IVlcntical.