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After a frantic weekend, Police Commissioner Russell and Detective Chief Stege handed in their resignations. However they remain on the force as captains. The Tribune took the Lingle story off Page One, perhaps aware that the Chicago Press was far more excited over the case than the Chicago Public.* To the Chicago Public there was an ironic aspect to the matter. Some Chicagoans will tell you that it was the Chicago newspapers which invented racketeering. That is not a fact. Sluggers were imported and organized violence indulged in by warring Chicago building trades unions a quarter-century ago. But it is a fact that the newspapers, in their great pre-War circulation battles, notably between the Chicago Tribune and Hearst, circulation managers hired hard-boiled "wagon bosses," armed them and sent them forth to battle on the streets. The police were given to understand that these fights were private, above the law, even if men were killed (and some were killed). Greatest general of those circulation wars was Max Annenberg, first for Hearst, then for the Tribune (he is now Liberty's circulation generalissimo—TIME, July 29). Many a name then or later famed in Chicago's gangland appeared on the payrolls of the newspapers—Gus Altman, Boston Tommy, the Delehanty brothers. Great wonder it would have been if such under-worldlings had not learned from their smart newspaper employers a lot about organized violence and contempt for the law.
Sorry for Reporter Lingle though they were, Chicagoans last week waited to see whether his would be a really fruitful martyrdom; whether, its heart touched, its majesty outraged, its power challenged, the Press of Chicago would lead or prod the leaderless city out of its uncivilized predicament.
*Tribune advertisements have lately been explaining: "The crime problem in Chicago is rendered acute by the ease with which criminals can enter and leave the city. . . . Yet it is this geographical position that makes it a city of over 3,000,000 population. . . . You have found time to read about crime in Chicago without profit to yourself. Spend a little more time and learn how you can take up the slack in your business by sales in the Chicago area."