CHICAGO'S GANGSTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 52, 2 March 1929, Page 11 (Supplement)

CHICAGO'S GANGSTERS.

BATTLE AGAINST CRIME. ALLIANCE WITH POLITICS. MILLIONS IN TRIBUTE. This is the sprond of a spHps of articlps (inscribing thp progress of the battle bein"' wngerl by the law-abiding citizens of '.hica go against its lawless underworld. This article shows how an armv of "payrollers, aidpd by thp vofp s produced by th" gangsters and racketeers, enabled a group of men.- whose only business is pi'lifirs, to rule the city arbitrarily and e\.M-t millions in tribute for themselves aml their cohorts. (By CLEM LANE.) f Written exclusively for the "Auckland Star ' and the North American Newspaper Alliance.) CHICAGO, December 9. The murder of Octavius C'. Granady, climaxing a day of violence and thievery at the April 10 primary, spurred a group of civic leaders to a smashing attack on the alliance between crime and politics. Granady, a negro lawyer, was the opponent of City Collector Morris Eller, a Thompson wheelhorse, for the committeeman's post in the "Bloody 20th" ward. An hour after the polls closed he was chased through the streets of the ward by a, gang of gunmen, run to earth and shot in cold blood. The savagery of the killing, grand, finale to a day of terrorism and thievery, brought together the city's leaders, among them Carl. R. Latham, president of the Chicago Bar Association, and Frank J. Loesch, president of the Chicago Crime Commission. They decided to ask for a special grand jury •with a special prosecutor, vice State's Attorney Robert K. Crowe (repudiated by 200,000 majority) to inquire into election crimes.

Mr. Latham went before Judge Harry B. Miller on May 9 to petition for a special jury and a special prosecutor. He asked, because of the law that Crowe had put through the legislature forbidding special prosecutors, to have Attorney-General Oscar Carlstrom appointed to direct the investigation, the actual inquiry to be placed in the hands of e.n upright Chicago lawyer. When plans for an inquiry had first been voiced, Crowe came out of the retirement that followed his defeat at the polls and announced he would start a regular grand jury investigation. As his own faction was the target for nearly all the charges of polls violence and theft, his announcement was greeted ■with suspicion. Crowe, however, -went before Judge Miller to fight the Bar petition, asserting he had an inquiry under way. Time was granted him to file formal answer to Latham's scorching charges that he was biased, unfit and unworthy to conduct the inquiry. Five days later, with the case still pending before Judge Miller, Crowe went before Chief Justice William V. Brothers, a man allied with his own faction, and asked the chief justice to take jurisdiction, quoting a rule of' the Criminal Court that such petitions must be presented first to the chief justice for action or assignment to an associate judge. If Crowe had planned a coup, he failed, for although Chief "Justice Brothers took jurisdiction, he granted the petition for a special grand jury and summoned the attorney general to take charge. Carlstrom, who had sacrificed gubernatorial ambitions and had joined the tiprht on the Small-Crowe-Thompson machine, appointed Loesch, head of the crime commission to conduct the inquiry. Funds were needed and the board of Cook County commissioners was asked for 150,000 dollars. Ten commissioners •were willing to appropriate, but five men, four of them Crowe-Thompson henchmen, the fifth a Democrat from a Crowe-Thompson stronghold, refused. Twelve votes were necessary for the appropriation under the law.

Loesch and his civic allies countered 'with an appeal for public subscriptions. The newspapers backed the plea and the ""Chicago Daily News" pave further aid "with a 5000 dollars subscription. The fund hit 154,000 dollars within a few weeks. The special prosecutor gathered t, «!?• T oi aids and a corps of investigators. The first grand jury was impanelled on June 4. On June 18, the first indictments were Returned. Among the ten men accused were State Senator James B. Leonardo, An Eller lieutenant, and Martin' Klass, nephew of "Boss" Eller and secretary to the boss' son, Judge Eller. Accused with them on charges ranging from l>allot thieveries to kidnapping and pEsault to murder were eight others. On June 27, Peter Pacelli, a cousin of fc State legislator and an erstwhile member of the State attorney's police detail, was indicted with thirteen others, charged with poll violence, kidnapping, •lugging and assault to hill. A few days later three policemrn who had incriminated themse' v es a j the primary were indicted. The defence lawyers-—three firms of $h em _ W ent before Judge Frank Comerfo.d of the Criminal Court on a motion to quash the indictments, contending the special grand jury vas illegal on the ground that Illinois law forbade two grand juries sitting simultaneously in the same county, Judge Comerford cut through the mass of legal technicalities, ruling" the special jury legal and its indictments val'.d. Ten days later, on July 17. ten more Eller henchmen were indicted for election crimes. Within a few days Judge Eller .-lashed the bonds on which they were held, reducing one man's front 280,000 dollars to 73,500 dollars; another's from 105,000 dollars to 03,500 dollars. \ report, got about—was printed in the newspapers—that one of the indicted men had begun to "sing, that 1-. was telling all he knew. Bennie Z.on a lies Ya ii'-er, an Eller hoodlum, report had it. was the "singer." On the morning of July 31 Z.on's bullet-t0,., bodv was found in a west side allev. -Another gangwar killing," was the police verdict, but the special pio.-ecutois rinoted the ancient saw that dead men t'-ll no tales." - , The July special jury made its final return oil August 3. t itv o t Eller. hi., son. Judge Eller, and ! - e^ e "' teen of tlieir henchmen were named in a blanket indictment, drawn by ant Special Prosecutor Edwin J. Kabei. an indictment expert. J \ twgntv-three counts of conspuac. < i„s lr„n, vote %ranadv, and included the chai c 3 * trie Kller- had protected vice and c an bling dives in exchange for vote-. An August special jury was -worn n> on Augu-t 10. It began an tion of the city ha 11 payrolls swole' plethoric proportions before the p . > and of charges that protection had bee,, swapped in the "black bcK, &

Thompson stronghold, in exchange for votes and hefty "campaign donations." Nothing developed in the "black belt" inquiry during August, but the payroll investigation revealed that hundreds had been hired by city officials in the weeks prior to the primary and had been ousted a day or so after the disastrous defeat of the Thompson-Crowc-Small machine. Many of the payrollers called before the special jury admitted they had done no work in return for their city pay cheques. Others said that when they asked for work thev were told to canvass their home precincts for the (Jrowelhompson candidates. Dovvnstate legislators, presumably as a reward for their votes in behalf of Thompson's increased bonding power bill and Crowe's state attorney bill, were also found on the city payrolls, far from their native haunts. Twenty per cent of the names on the rolls, the presecntors charged, were fraudulent. Grand jury investigators seeking them at the address listed found vacant lots, addresses that didn't exist, or houses wins:' {' ■> ;•;* y rollers' names had never been heard. Though the August jury returned only a few minor indictments, other factors had been working to aid in the fight for a better Chicago.