CHICAGO GANGS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 79, 3 April 1926, Page 7

CHICAGO GANGS

POLICE AND BOOTLEGGERS.

(Speolal to "The Evening Post.") VANCOUVER, 10th March. Chicago has sent'out the <5.0;8,, and. has sent an appeal tb the United States Senate, to rescue it from the clutches of criminals, who have for years controlled the city. A lurid record of murder, bombing, and gang terrorism is behind the appeal. Unfortunately, politics is mixed up in it. and any action that may be taken will in;volve the rekindling of smouldering fires of warfare between the..factions in the local Republican organisation. The Better Government Association, a* body of citizens that has 'sprung up out;of the demand for pure justice, alleges that there is 'anactual alliance between the oriminal and municipal and political elements o£ the community. ■ , , One murder a day is Chicago's experience for years past.. Gang-Warfare, an outcrop of Prohibition, or an attendant circumstance of it, increases at an alarming extent. No gang leaders are" arrested. The premium on crime, and the reputation Chicago has got abroad have moved the Federal''authorities to tike a hand.

Evidence in support of tho charges is. furnished in "'the form of photographs, showing political leaders being feted at banquets by such gang powers as "Diamond Joe" Exposita and "Big Jim" Genna. In otte picture, the Lieutenant-Gtover-nor'of the State, several Judges, the Secretary of State, and Other prominent officials are seated at the main table With the directors of the notorious Gennas. In another, a Chicago Senator and half-a^. dozen of his supporters are banqueting with. "Diamond Joe" and other bootleggersi The petition alleges that; in the trial'of two prominent gangster* for the murder of a policeman, adjudge excluded evidence that would have proved collusion between the law i and the Genna gang. The ex* eluded evidence was to the effect that the Gennas had been selling 500 gallons of alcohol a day for five years; that hundreds of policemen were drawing .pay monthly from the gang; that police escorts were furnished for .shipments of Genna alcohol; and that Genna's fifteen illicit stills were immune from prosecution.