The Trade of Murder Chicago Makes Bid To

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 478, 6 October 1928, Page 22

The Trade of Murder Chicago Makes Bid To

End Unholy Alliance of Crime and Politics ...

ITIZENS o£ Chicago, aroused by the boldness o£ the city's criminal element, are making a determined effort to end the alliance between crime and politics, to curb the gunmen and to stop the trade of murder, says the New York “Times.” In the role of vigilantes the Chicago Crime Commission is engaged in the task of cleaning up a situation that has made the name of Chicago a byword through the country. Chicago has been a haven and a paradise, especially in the last two years, for the swarm of thugs whose full-time is that of gang gunmen, but who are part-time political workers, always available for quick transfer from the gambling and bootlegging interests that they serve as an unofficial, armed police, and ready for mobilisation In an election campaign.

In 1526 and 1927 there "were 760 murders committed in the city and county. More than one-third of them Were set down on the police records as unsolved mysteries and nothing further was done about them. In the remaining cases convictions were secured in 22 per cent., but mostly on accepted pleas of guilty of crimes less than murder. For the 760 murders there were only 10 hangings. The total number of violent deaths for the two years was 1,438, including cases of manslaughter, “auto manslaughter,” abortions, “undetermined violence,” and justifiable homicide. There were 23 justifiable homicides, and these included the cases of 89 persons killed by policemen. All such police killings were listed as justifiable automatically without official action. But out of all this welter of bloodshed statistics the most amazing total, the figure that is relevant to the matter of Chicago’s political crime, is the count of gang murders. There were 130 of these in two years. Not a man has been punished for one of them. No man is now in gaol or on bail or under official suspicion in anticipation of such punishment. There have been no convictions whatever. One hundred and thirty human beings, most of them gunmen themselves, have been murdered in two years and no more has come of it than if they had

been 130 sparrows in Grant Park. Not so much; sparrow shooters arc punished. It is in that gruesome total that the alliance of crime and politics manifests itself in Chicago. Its analysis is worth while. Eighty-two of the 130 gam murders were in the city, fortyeight in that part of Cook County lying outside the city limits, and all were within the jurisdiction of State Attorney Crowe, who is a county official. They constitute almost 20 per cent, of all the murders of city and county for the period considered, and 27 per cent, of all killings with revolvers and sawed-off shotguns. Of the 130 gang murder cases 104 were set down as unsolved mysteries and there were no arrests, no court action whatever concerning them. In the other 26 cases 64 persons were arrested charged with being principals or accessoi-ies in the murders. Two of the suspects, on bail, were murdered before trial. Only 16 of the, 64 were actually tried and they were all acquitted; the other 46 all got away on one preliminary pretext or another without trial. In one case three men who had been named by the coroner as guilty were not even arrested. ® A vital day in the calendar of the move against crime was that of tile elections on April 10. The events that markpd that day were the political murder, kidnappings and other gang atrocities perpetrated as a part of the terrorism resorted to for the purpose of gaining a victory for Crowe, the State’s Attorney, under the Big Bill Thompson regime, at the polls. These, together with ballot-box stuffing and fraudulent vote-counting, are the crimes which President Loesch of the Crime Commission and the special Grand Jury are now working on, as well as the terrorism of the month immediately preceding the elections. The gangsters did not wait for polling day to intimidate the opponents of their political patrons. Eposito, an Indian ward leader opposed to Big Bill Thompson and Crowe, was murdered in March, and a day or two after his funeral bombs were exploded at the homes of Judges Deneen and Swanson.

Strange as it may seem, the public did not think that it had done its whole duty by defeating Crowe and his associates in the elections. That

was generally recognised as only the first step along the road on which the new Crime Commission was leading. The second was a popular subscription of money to finance the fight. There was an oversubscription. The only person that a gang gunman in Chicago has had to fear has been the gunman of a rival gang. Here more than anywhere else he has had freedom and opportunity to develop his trade to such a point that it can be discussed in about the same economic terms of competition, seasonal work, employment and nonemployment as any other gainful occupation. The gambling interests have to have their own police. They may buy aiid receive immunity and noninterference from the paid police of the people, but they can hardly expect city policemen to sit around in uniforms to protect their faro banks and roulette wheels and so on from sudden raiefc by hold-up men. For that work they must employ their own gunmen, as -they always have. To a less extent the same is true of the vice group. But since prohibition the economic necessity for increasing this horde of armed men to keep the liquor business going has been enormous. With all this material at her disposal Chicago, therefore, is to convince the rest of the counter in the next few months that the alliance between crime and politics is no myth, if any such proof is needed. Chicago is the best town to make the demonstration because the sinister combination is more vividly dramatised by bombs and shotguns there than anywhere else in the country, and so far there has been less punishment.