"I was hired by Joe Traum, Indiana and Kentucky gangleader, and Richard Michael Sullivan, who was a friend of mine. I drove them in a stolen car to the Illinois Central pedestrian subway. There they joined a blond man whose name I never knew. These three killed Jake Lingle. I think the blond man fired the shot. They were acting for Christ Patras, a north-side restaurant man, who represented Jack Zuta, business manager for the Aiello-Moran gang. When my employers went to collect the $10,000 promised them by Patras, he balked, was killed. Zuta was killed two months afterward." Not in those exact words but to that effect, Prisoner Frank Bell last week spoke rapidly to a Chicago coroner's jury, made Chicago's big crime news of the week. Prisoner Bell had been in gaol since June for robbery & murder. His friend Sullivan was jailed in July for the Patras murder, which he confessed. Traum is in the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan. on other charges.
Further to gain favor with the authorities, Prisoner Bell next day warned the gaol-warden of a plotted escape by Prisoner William ("Blackie") Lenhardt, murderer, and two accomplices. Searchers found the bars of Lenhardt's cell sawed, a loaded automatic pistol in his bed.
Second-biggest Chicago crime news last week was the entrance of famed, retired Attorney Clarence S. Darrow into court cases in defense of two of the 26 gangsters listed by Col. Robert Isham Randolph, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce,* as the city's greatest Public Enemies. On the strength of this list, the September grand jury, under the foremanship of Vice President Gabriel Flournoy Slaughter of American Steel Foundries, had resurrected an ancient vagrancy law. Judge John H. Lyle then issued vagrancy warrants for the arrest thereunder of notorious gangsters.
Though the list included Alphonse ("Scarface Al") Capone, George ("Bugs") Moran, Joseph ("Joe") Aiello and other Grade A gangsters, only eight minor figures were rounded up by police during the past fortnight. They were: Terrence ("Terrible Terry") Druggan, ill in a hospital; Danny Stanton, jailed because his gun was said to prove ballistically that he had shot swart Jack Zuta; Caponeman Jack Guzick, first arrested by Federal agents for income-tax evasion; James (''Fur") Sammons, robber, killer, ex-convict; Edward ("Spike") O'Donnell, Capone beer salesman; ("Dago") Lawrence Mangano, west side gambling-house keeper; George ("Red") Barker and William ("Three-fingered Jack") White, both agents of the coal teamsters union (nonA. F. of L.).
Lawyer Darrow appeared as counsel for Barker and White. He told horrified Judge Lyle he always had been "close to unions," added significantly: "If the authorities wish to harass the lawless they should do it legally. There is no such charge in law as a 'Public Enemy.' The vagrancy law provides for release under $100 bond, yet men are being . . . made to furnish $10,000 bonds."
> Last week Chicago's September grand jury handed up a report recommending investigation of racketeering by a special grand jury.