The Chicago star., November 02, 1946, Star Special Supplement, Image 11

About The Chicago star. (Chicago, Ill.) 1946-1948

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
iiPTion mid enrol
>rd of our city under Republican rule .
mSm
lost SIBO,OOO in Simmons Bed
stock alone.
The Chicago Daily News sub
sequently revealed that Lingle
was the contact man for the Gen
eral News Bureau, wnich furnish
ed race information to 2,500 Chi
cago bookmakers.
# * #
THE General News Bureau was
owned by Moe Annenberg, whose
brother, Max, was for many
years the circulation manager of
the Chicago Tribune;
It was Annenberg who directed
the bloody Tribune “circulation
war” against the Hearst paper, in
which the gangster killings com
prise one of the most lurid chap
ters in the history of Republican
control of the city.
In 1934, control of the $1,000,-
000-a year General News Bureau
was battled out in Chicago Cir
cuit Court. Defendants in the
case were Moe Annenberg and
James M. Ragen, whose recent
shooting and poisoning caused a
sensation here. Representing
them was the Tribune law firm
of. Kirkland, Fleming, Green and
Martin, of which Col. McCormick
himself was a partner.
• * *
ON HIS RELEASE from pri
son, Daniel A. Serritella became
a big wheel in the Republican
Party, a state senator and ward
committeeman of the First Ward.
The recent Ragen disclosure
showed that Serritella was a
front man. and collector for the
late Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti
and Jack Guzik, Capone’s succes
sors.
It was Serritella, according to
Ragen’s testimony, who was in
on a recent deal whereby Gover-
ifiS Jw m,
jp... - igL
" CAPONE
nor Dwight Green was to get
$50,000 from Benjamin F. Lind
heimer, director of the Washing
ton Park and Arlington Park
race tracks if Lindheimer could
“name the racing commissioner.”
Lindheimer flatly denied any
knowledge of the transaction. But
Gov. Green declared:
“I think he (Lindheimer)
gave me some help, but any
sum like that would have been
a gift from heaven.”
It was also Serritella who re
vealed that he had been present
at meetings in McCormick’s of
fices in the Tribune Tower be
tween the Colonel and A1 Capone.
o # #
NO HONEST person, least of
all this writer, will support the
myth of the stainless character
of the present Democratic admin
istration of Chicago. But for a
record of political reaction and
fabulous corruption unequalled
in any other American city, one
would have to go back to the
period when the Republicans rul
ed Chicago.
The year 1930 is a long way
behind us. The Republicans base
their chances this year on the
hope that it has been forgotten.
For the period of Republican con
trol of the city is the period of
the Big Steal.
In 1930, the estimated “take”
of Chicago’s racketeers was six
million dollars a week, pouring in
from 7,000 speakeasies, 2,500 dis
orderly houses, 200 major gambl
ing places and 1,500 handbooks.
* * «
McCORMICK and his Lingles
ruled the roost. The Tribune built
its million-a-day circulation
through gangsterism and vio
lence.
■■
i
Insull owned a utility empire
taking in fabulous profits. His
utility control extended over Chi
cago arid 16 Illinois counties.
In his “Tale of Chicago,” Ed
gar Lee Masters wrote:
“AI Capone and Samuel In
sull had more in- common than
either of them Imagine... both
had the same unappeasable
hunger, one was a man-eating
shark, the other a frog-eating
dogfish.
“Insull sold light and power,
and built corporations of paper
higher than the Wat Chang at
Bangkok. Capone furnished
thirsty Chicagoans with drink
and used the lights of Insull
with which to illuminate his
gambling tables and the danc
ing rooms of bagnios.- Both
were racketeers.”
Os the unholy trio of Insull-Me-
Cormick-Capone, only McCormick
remains an aggressive threat to
the city.
Today, McCormick has become
czar of the Republican Party in
Illinois. Today, the autocrat in
the Tribune Tower dreams of a
return of the day when the GOP
ruled Chicago, when the city was
a wide-open vice resort, when po
litical reaction ruled supreme
and when the people were the
prey of the most voracious plun
der-bund that ever disgraced an
American city.
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McCORMICK
INSULL