The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4th, 1925. A CRIME TRUST.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 February 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4th, 1925. A CRIME TRUST.

I’kcuuar things happen in the United States. A New York telegram of late November reveals some peculiar features bearing on what might he described as a crime trust. The message to a London paper reads:—A truly Gilbertian situation has been disclosed in Chicago by the regal funeral accorded to Dion O’Baiiiiiun, its most popular bootlegger. According to tho Ameiican newspapers, which are alternately indignant and humorous on the subject, O’Bannion was only a third-rate captain of crime. The actual heads of the profession he practised, they sav, are men far “higher up” who frequent the best clubs, hoh-uoli with leading lawyers and judges, and receive homage in the form of respectful salutes Irum the police when they violate the •speed laws in their luxurious motorcars. In a word, their lives are spent in exalted spheres of society, for they are nut “outlaws” but men who skilfully manage to keep) within the Jaw while they amass riches from the efiicient industrialisation of crime. In the underworld, however, O’Bannion was a most distinguished figure. When he died- at the hands of three assassins, who escaped scot free with the aid of a covering cohort of confederate motorists, the Chief of Police exclaimed, ‘‘The city is well rid of him, for he has been responsible for 25 murders.”- Yet municipal judges, city officials and ward politicians—whose names the local press publishes hastened after his death to leave cards and wreaths with his widow. A prolonged and spectacular “wake” was held; and, finally, the remains of the bootlegger chieftain were conveyed in a solid silver coffin, resting on a huge bed of roses, to th cemetery, where a- mob of ten thousand people with a thousand motor-cars, had assembled to witness the last rites. The Church alone remained aloof from the fantastic ceremony. It closed the doors of the cathedral to the mourners and refused the use of consecrated ground for the burial. But its absence was concealed by a gorgeous procession of ' vans hearing floral tributes from the underworld and bv a highly skilled jazz band, which played hymns during the “service.” All in all, the funeral was the most expensive as well as the most bizarre in the history of Chicago. To appreciate the significance of the episode an epitome of O’Bannion’.' career is necessary. He was first seer in a small Illinois town as the son of a. plasterer. His environment was religious. He was a choir boy. Drifting to Chicago, be waited an opportunity. Meanwhile be cracked a safe, but escaped wth a three months’ sentence. Years later prohibition opened up to him a broad and rapid road to wealth. He organised bis gang and established himself beside it in an ornate florist’s shop. His watchword was “posies and pistols.” Beneath a cluster of carnations in his establishment a pair of revolvers invariably reposed; for in

career O’Bannion bad adopted, death comes early. The average age of those of his confederates who died in feuds was not more than twenty-eight; and O’Bannion was already in the early thirties, a plump, short, sleek man with a sentimental regard for the relatives of the victims who were crippled or killed in the game of capturing consignments of heer and whisky. For besides being a bootlegger O’Bannion was what is known as a “Hi-Jackei. a man who organised raids upon the goods of his fellow; lwotleggers. Once, bout a year ago. he was caught by the police with his pistol levelled at the head of the driver of a lorry full of whisky. But the case against him never came to trial. Oil another occasion, as the La Salle Theatre was disgorging .its crowd of playgoers, lie shot and wounded a rival gang leader. When the time of trial came, however, the witnesses had conveniently forgotten Wli&fc lliejr Rf»W. ft'ilfiilfiihn’A ihiest eSflgif Will fijg liiiilehig: tfe oKloittl ft

shipment of whisky for £20,000 from New York anil raided the trucks containing the liquor before their arrival at Chicago. The generally accepted version of the sequel is that agents of the vendors called on him in his florist’s shop with imperative instructions t<. exact payment. And so he fell dead, riddled with bullets amid a profusion of flowers. His ornate funeral has created an uproar. The newspapers, in recording the ceremony, published lists of the men opposed to O'Bannion, whose death from assassination might he confidently anticipated within the next few days. Th police accused the magistrates of responsibility, because of their leniency, for the “acute murder problem" in Chicago; and the magistrates in turn denounced the police for their failure to arrest the chief criminals. The police sallied forth and arrested 80 men in various pool-game parlours whom they alleged were carrying guns; and their orders, as proclaimed. were to “save trouble for the lawyers by giving work to the hospitals.” There, for the moment, the problem rests. It is assumed everywhere that the prisoners captured will he released shortly, and that the captains of crime will continue to pay about £250,000 for protection from the Prohibition and Narcotic Ljiw.s and for' immunity from arrest. Uninfluenced by the demonstrative funeral of O’Bannion, Chicago on this its newspapers agree—is still “wide open”'to the liquor traffic, which is prospering to an incredible degree by the willingness of hundreds of thousands of citizens to pay almost any price for the slaking of their thirst.