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Newspaper Page Text
mimmmmmmmmmmmmmm MAJ. FUNKHOUSER AND THE MORALS SQUAD GET INTO HOT WATER J Trouble appears to be coming in bunches to the morals squad. The discharge of Investigator J. E. Steele was a blow to Major Funkhouser. It leaked out that Chief Gleason fired the major's most industrious stool pigeon right over the major's head after hearing the charges that Steele had shaken down a woman xf the un derworld. Another influence that brought about the ousting of Steele was the complaint of a relative of Jack Bross Lloyd, young son of the late Henry Demarest Lloyd and brother of Wil liam Bross Lloyd. The circumstances were these: Jack Bross Lloyd, while in the proc ess of "sowing his wild oats," met and married a young womaiuof the redlight district. The marriage did not make a hit with his family. It soon became known that they were seeking an an- nulment. But tney coma get nouung on the girl. According to the story, Steele went to the office of the attorney for the family. There he is charged with having made this proposition: "In my position as an investigator for the morals squad I can get the goods on this woman. Just a little raid. An arrest and a court fine and it will be a cinch for the divorce court." But it so happened that the stool pigeon had misjudged the character of the family. While they wanted a divorce they didn't want to frame up on the girl. It is that story that is supposed to have reached Gleason's ears imme diately after Mrs. Violet Phipps had gone to State's Att'y Hoyne and charged that to prevent her arrest she had given Steele $50. Even after that was told Funk houser he refused to take action against Steele. And it was only after Gleason grew angry over the contin ued retention of Steele's name on the city of Chicago payroll that the ex- i plosion came. Countess YorkeK divorced wife oto George Mead, who is ill in Milwaukee after an overdose of veronal, also j charged that her apartments were raided by Steele as a result of at frameup between the stool pigeon I and her divorced husband. Rumors that Mrs. Phipps and Countess Yorke were going further 3 with their charges against Steele could not be verified today, as neither J could be reached. t Judge Arnold Heap, who will have T charge of the morals court for the next few months, today denounced e the frameup methods of the Funk-i houser vice chasers. 3 Last night Samuel Allis, a Funk- 3 houser man, went to the Hotel Paris, 638 S. State. He assumed the role 1 of a "live one" looking for a girl. Evi- dently his acting was good. The 1 clerk proceeded to call girls. The first two didn't please the stool pig- I eon. Then he finally chose Ruby t Schmidt They had scarcely went to a room before another Funkhouser 1 man, Andrew Covo, known in the underworld as "Frenchy," and two officers entered the hotel and raided the room. Judge Heap immediately scored the work of the men. "You have no right to encourage vice in that manner," he said. "You make it easy for these girls to break the law, then you proceed to arrest them. I won't tolerate such work." After an argument by representa tives of the city prosecutor's office, Judge Heap gave them a chance until March 18 to prove that the girl and not the men were in the wrong. 0 0 Guttenberg, N. J. Bomb exploded in rear of home of Mayor Herrmann; wall of house demolished. No one Injured. esgmmsmmmmmm