Chicago's Week

STATES & CITIES

When Chicago's Police Commissioner William F. Russell resigned following the murder of the Tribune's newsgatherer Alfred ("Jake") Lingle (TIME, June 23), he left his position to Deputy Commissioner John H. Alcock. While Chicago waited, Mayor William Hale Thompson allowed this half-appointment to dangle almost a week without official recognizance, then suddenly issued a statement: "Alcock . . . desired to retain his. . . standing as First Deputy Commissioner in lieu of being appointed by me as Commissioner of Police. . . . My instruction to him is: drive the crooks and gangsters out of Chicago."

Next day State's Attorney John A. Swanson announced: "I have officially been given to understand that definite evidence will be made available for the grand jury in [the Lingle] murder." Before the week was out, police sleuths identified the pistol that killed Lingle as having been sold a few months ago to one Frank Foster, dapper member of the Capone "mob." Foster was missing from Chicago. A nationwide search began to find him, to ask him who may have used the gun if not he.

Commissioner Alcock, like New York City's new Commissioner Mulrooney, is an oldtime, silent, line policeman. His reply to the Mayor's instruction was this : "There'll be no dillydallying by the Police Department. . . . There has been too much talk. I want results. . . . We need 12,000 men. We have about 5,000. . . . People want uniformed policemen on the streets. Uniformed men will prevent crime. . . . It is easier to prevent than solve it."

Meanwhile, Chicago's State Representative W. J. Schnackenburg told the Legislature at Springfield: "I have been informed . . . by a member of the Chicago Citizens' Committee that unless [financial] relief [from the State] is forthcoming [by July 1] it will be necessary to replace unpaid policemen with Federal troops."

Chicago's "Secret Six" under Col. Robert Isham Randolph, president of the Association of Commerce, met with 48 business leaders last week, increased its subsidiary finance committee from nine to 16 members, obtained pledges of $500,000 to combat crime, hoped to obtain $1,000,000.

Chicago's City Council, having heard outgoing Police Commissioner Russell say that his one insurmountable obstacle had been Prohibition, last week memorialized Congress to call a referendum on repeal of the 18th Amendment.

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