Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-08-19
STEALING AUTOS
IS BIG BUSINESS
In Past Seven Months $500 Have Been
Taken by Thieves in Chicago,
Police Report.
RISK RATES TO BE DOUBLED
Trade Especially Good on Saturdays
and Sundays davenport Arrests
Uncover Trust. Belief.

chicago, Aug. 1Y.-Ine arrest OF two
men in Davenport, Iowa, charged with
being the heads of d stolen automo-
bile trust, may for time discourage
their active assistants, But in spite
of this and other temporary setbacks,
it remains true that one Of the briskest
and most profitable industries in Chi
cagO is that of stealing motor cars.
On Saturdays and Sundays the trade
is especially good. Almost any bright
sunny week end will yield a harvest of
\ so or so cars.
Many of our most enterprising hOlp-
up artists, second story workers, and
pickpOclets are abandoning their old
! occupations for the more lucrative and
safer business Of annexing other peo-
pies autos.
AS a location for clever, hard
| working automobile thief Chicago has
no rival among great cities In 1915,
for instance, the car cadgers of New
| York were able to get away with only
PA cars. And all but Il of them were
recovered. In Chicago-One speaks in
no spirit of bOastfulness-autOm
thieves stole 2,1S4 cars, of which num-
Der 522 disappeared entirely.
| That record is even better than it
| looks on the surface for New York
| City has as many motor cars as the
/ whole state of Illinois. Yet with that
I handicap, the local experts were able
to do ten times as much business.
| Boom This Year.
| This year there is a still greater
| boom in the industry. 1t is probable
| that 1916 will close with 5000 cars
| stolen in Chicago. Up to the first of
August some $500 stolen cars had
! been reported to the Automobile Pro
F.. tective and Information bureau. That
! Oh 1rR1- e
! per cent-an average of a dozen cars
| stolen every day, including Sundays.
As the cars represent a value of per
! haps 81 900 each, the total sum in
/ VoIYed reaches more than $2,500,000
/ for the seven months.
Evidently all the owners of stolen
! cars do not report their losses to the
/ police, for Captain Larkin of the de-
! tective bureau had record yesterday of
only some 1900 cars missing up to
| June is. Captain Larkin says that
about 80 per cent of the missing mo-
! tors are recovered within a few weeks.
/ An official of the protective associa-
! ton declares the percentage which
/ gets back TO their owners is not now
| larger than 60 per cent
Profits in Rewards.
But even if a car is returned to the
/ owner it by no means follows that the
! job is without profit to the thief The
Protective association is composed Of
/ representatives of some eighty COM
panies which are in the business Of in
surfing automobile owners against
theft. 1t offers rewards for the return
of stolen cars, and in many cases it is
more than suspected that the person
who collects the reward has a fifty
fifty arrangement with the thief.
IQyrF in Of v,,Fe~ e
efforts of the automobile squad at the
detective bureau-in the members of
which squad the Protective association
has the greatest conference.-the losses
of the insurance companies in the Chi
cagO territory are increasingly great.
Already the premiums charged for
auto theft insurance are 20 per cent
higher in Chicago than in New York,
and as a result of the startling in
crease in thefts SO far this year the
Chicago delegates to the national
board of underwriters, which meets
next week in New York, will urge that
the rates now in force be doubled.
Responsibility for the present start
ling situation seems to be divided
among the owners themselves, the in
surance companies, the states attor-
ney's office, the courts and the police. !
In Detroit, which ranks next to Chi |
cagO as a fine field for motor thieves, !
an ordinance has recently been passed |
compelling all automobile owners to |
securely lock their cars before leaving |
them on the street. fine of $50 is |
provided for failure to obey the law. !
In a way, the insurance companies |
encourage owners to be careless with |
their cars by sometimes issuing poll |
cies up to the full price paid. When |
six months use has considerably de-
preciated the selling value of the car /
to collect the face value Of the inSur-
ance policy is no hardship. The sys-
tenn Of Offering considerable reward
for the return of stolen cars is also a
factor.
Court Easy on Thieves.
1t also is true that the courts have
been very Ienient with automobile n
thieves. In the boys court, especially, II
both Judge Fisher and Judge Dolan
have taken the position in many cases Il
that to steal a motor car is simply
playful bOyish lark, to be passed over, !,
frequently with a reprimand- When
one recalls what used to happen to n
people who stole horses in the early
days-and a horse was rarely worth
more than S100-the contrast with the
treatment allotted to automobile
thieves is startling.
Finally it is declared that while
some twenty-sevcn more or less
chronic automobile thieves have been
indicted by the grand jury none of
them has yet been brought to trial by
the states attorney. On tine authority
Of the protective association II may be
said that the first man has set % serve
a sentence in Joliet for stealing d mo