ILLINOIS: The Innocents

No one in Chicago has ever had any trouble getting down a bet on the horses, finding a crap game, or getting a seat at a public poker session.

At rhythmic intervals, some Chicago newspaper or civic body "exposes" the flourishing evil of gambling. The Mayor is always "amazed," invariably "pledges action." The Police Commissioner is always "shocked," invariably calls his captains in on "the carpet."

Heavily publicized raids are then made on establishments that no gambling citizen has ever heard of. The real gambling houses close their doors for a few days or weeks. The Civic Leader is photographed smilingly shaking hands with the Mayor. Vice has been Stamped Out. Then the joints all open again.

The Chicago Tribune, its conscience recently aroused, has been virtuously bugling the gambling evil for the past month, has "exposed" a group of characters known as the Guzik-Nitti gang, amid waves of public apathy. Last week the routine rigmarole was repeated. Out of a grand jury gambling investigation came tall, wavy-haired Mayor Ed Kelly. The look on his face was familiar to all connoisseurs of "B" movies—the Leading Rancher as he pounds the table and says: "Boys, Rustling Must Stop!"

Said Mayor Kelly: "Some of the things I learned in there amazed me and opened my eyes, to say the least. If some of the things I heard are verified I am sure that Commissioner of Police Allman will see that someone gets hell in the Police Department." James P. Allman ordered his captains called in on the carpet.

Holding its nose, the Chicago Daily News editorialized, with massive restraint: "We . . . found it hard to stomach the remarks made by Mayor Kelly. . . ."

Next day all the chief joints closed down. Some 30 small-time gamblers, hauled off to court, whiled away the time in the grand jury anteroom, playing cards.