The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-07-09
BY EARL J. JOHNSON
United Press StaR COrrespondent

CHICAGO, July occasionally
in the history of Chicago crime, one
murder becomes ia cause celebre"
of a furious attack on the UNDER
world.
Such a murder five years ago was
the killing of William McSwiggin,
assistant states attorney.
Such a crime was the Moran gang
massacre on st. Valentines day in
1929.
Such a crime also was the Staying
four weeks ago of Alfred j. Lingle,
Chicago Tribune police reporter.
But the Lingle murder promises
to dwarf all previous gang killings
in the extent of its qualifications, in
its significance as signaling a final
showdown on whether Chicago can
eliminate the evils which have given
her a bad name.
At the same time, it presents
problems with which Chicago has
not had to deal before. It casts
suspicion upon other reporters for
the very newspapers which have led
the fight against organized crime
and has set the papers themselves
to sniping at each others motives.
This and other developments will
be reported in subsequent dis
patches. Today'S is devoted to the
main to Lingle, the reporter-rac-
keteer, and to the murder which
ended his mysterious dual career.
Like Stage Type
Aside from the private activities
in which he now is believed to have
played such questionable roles.
Jake" Lingle was the type Of
metropolitan newspaper reporter
that has been exploited on the stage
in recent seasons. He was familiar
with police and criminals. He sell
dom wrote the stories he covered"
but telephoned his facts to re-write
men in the city room of his paper.
Occasionally he was asked to make
private Investigations of crimes or
Of suspected criminals for the files
of his paper or for exposes of crime
which appeared in the Tribune n
der the Signatures of more talented
writer's.
For the better part of the eight
cen years that Lingle worked for the
Tribune, he was assigned to these
tasks.
Thus, when a wiry gunman with
a silk glove on the left hand with
which he welded his pistol, shot
Lingle in the back of the head in a
pedestrian subway beneath Mich
igan boulevard June IL, it was
natural to assume that gangland
was attempting to intimidate the
press.
The Tribune itself voiced the
theory that their reporter had been
slain because he knew too much
about gangland, that gangland was
attempting to intimidate the press
for exposing gang crime. Inc
Tribune accepted the challenge on
that basis.
Had Expensive Rooms
Then, slowly at first, Light began
to fall on other phases Of the crime.
Colonel Robert r. Mccormick pub
Usher of the Tribune, heard rumors
that Lingle was no Don Mellett,
that he lived in a hotel suite far
too expensive tor a police reporter.
Investigation of his private life
his finances. his habits, revealed
Lingle as more racketeer than re-
porter. 1t was learned that he had
used mis- position with the powerful
Tribune, 10 act as a go-between ftf
gangsters with the police.
He was SO friendly with former
Police Cher William Russell thss
the two were reported to have had
a joint brokerage account which az
one time was built up to 100000.
At the same time he was an in
timates of Scarface Al Capone and
was CapoI.e's house guest at Miami,
Fla. His income was estimated at
$4,000 a year.
These revelations set investigators
to following new trails. The the
ory that Llngle was killed to intimi-
date the press was abandoned. 1t
seemed more likely that he had been
killed for violating some law OF the
underworld in his transactions with
yangsters.
1t was inevitable that the Lingle
murder, IT. the light of his gang and
police connections, would have far
reaching effects on the Chicago
anti crime war. These effects and
the personalities they involve viii
be the subjects Of further dispatches