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In any event, the Tribune said last week, those things "could be important leads into the crimes of the underworld, but their presentation has changed the atmosphere from one of co-operation to one of hostility. . . . The search [for Lingle's murderer] is confused and obstructed by publishers who should be interested in making the pursuit relentless wherever it leads. . . . The decency and honesty of newspaper work in this city is on public trial."
Meanwhile in Los Angeles was occurring the last act of a newspaper racket story which made the petty taxing of Chicago brothel keepers pale into insignificance. Morris Lavine, ace reporter of the Los Angeles Examiner, was convicted of attempting to extort $75,000 in the course of a second expose of the Julian Petroleum Corp. scandal of 1927.
Lavine, University of California graduate, was first associated with the Examiner at the age of 14 as a contributor of school news. He became the paper's "big shot" reporter and investigator, known throughout the West for his sensational coups. It was Lavine who in 1922 found Clara Phillips ("Hammer Murderess") in Honduras after her escape from jail, and induced her to return to face a life sentence. It was Lavine who wrung a confession from Herb Wilson ("Preacher Mail Bandit") of two mail holdups and killing of a mail guard. Lavine it was who discovered the tell-tale bloodstains that led to the arrest of William Edward Hickman for the butchery of Marion Parker.
Again it was Lavine who was credited with the first expose in 1927 of the $40,000,000 collapse of the Julian Corporation under an overissue of 4,000,000 shares of stock. There were wholesale indictments, many an imprisonment. Last October stockholders brought a $12,000,000 recovery suit. Miss Leontine Johnson, former secretary to Julian's President S. C. Lewis, was supposed to have inside information. Lavine was assigned to "ghostwrite" her personal stories for the Examiner. After the first story appeared, Lavine was arrested outside the office of Charles Crawford, Los Angeles political boss, with $75,000 in marked bills. He and Miss Johnson planned, the prosecutors said, to squeeze $300,000 from a half-dozen prominent citizens, upon pain of using their names in unfavorable connections in the new revelations.
Both pleaded not guilty, said the $75,000 was given them for documents taken from the Julian files. Both were convicted and await sentence.* If sent to San Quentin, Reporter Lavine may meet convict (formerly) District Attorney Asa Keyes, whom he helped send there as a bribe-taker in the Julian prosecutions (TIME, March 24). If permitted to visit the women's quarters, he may even pay his respects to Hammer Murderess Clara Phillips.
*Acme News Pictures, Inc., a Scripps-Howard enterprise (like United Press. X. E. A., Telegram, etc.) was not invited. President Karl Bickel of United Press heard about it, hurriedly telephoned Col. Lindbergh, received belated admittance for Acme, an apology, an invitation to luncheon. — Ridder papers: New York Staats-Zcitung, Herald, Journal of Commerce, Jamaica (N. Y.), Long Island Press. Seattle Times (minority interest), St. Paul Dispatch, Pioneer Press; Aberdeen, S. Dak. American, News.