Conclusions of a Crowd

At 1:15 on the sunny afternoon of last June 9, the crowd which swarmed and eddied in & out of the tunnel leading from Chicago's Michigan Boulevard and Randolph Street to the Illinois Central suburban depot, represented a fair cross-section of the human currents passing through any great city.

A policeman in the street was directing traffic eight lines wide. On the corner loitered a small-town policeman out of work, and a medicine show barker. A man who had worked his way through Northwestern University and was now driving a taxi, waited for a fare. A shipping clerk waited for a bus. Among the thousands thronging by were a housewife, a sporty realtor and his friend, a petty municipal official. In a luggage store across the street a hotel clerk asked a salesman to show him the men's room.

Among those passing through the tunnel were: a priest from Notre Dame University on his way to a dentist appointment: a horsey Kentuckian on his way to a race track; an unemployed plumber; a railway switchman; the wife of a packing company official come to town to do some shopping. And, about to take a train to Washington Park race course was Alfred ("Jake") Lingle. "leg man" (newsgatherer but not writer) for the Chicago Tribune, a newspaper man with racketeering side interests. Just after he bought a newspaper and entered the tunnel, some one in the human current moved up behind him, stuck a sawed-off revolver behind his head and pulled the trigger. As the shot barked through the crowded tunnel and people screamed. Lingle pitched forward to the pavement, newspaper still clutched under his arm, cigar in teeth, instantly dead. . . .

Last week the State of Illinois, amply aided by Tribune investigators, concluded its case against one Leo V. ("Buster") Brothers, St. Louis gangster, accused of the Lingle murder. Reputed already to have cost $150,000 for investigations, it was one of the few famed gang murders ever to go so far as actual trial in Chicago. Defense and prosecution both produced human molecules from the stream that had been flowing through the tunnel last June 9, to try to reproduce pictures of what had happened.

Nine of the 17 witnesses were introduced by the prosecution. This was their picture of what took place: A dark man with a mole on his face, subsequently identified as Gangster Brothers, with his hand kept significantly in his pocket, entered the underpass. A shot was heard, after which the same man was seen to fling aside his revolver, run out into the street, then into an alley, subsequently disappearing through the toilet of the luggage shop. Prime testimony was given by the priest and the medicine-show man. Eight witnesses, of whom the most valuable for the defense were the packing official's wife and the switchman, told a different story: A shot was fired at Lingle, who was seen to fall. Then a blonde man, looking nothing at all like Gangster Brothers, ran through the hysterical crowd. The hotel clerk, a dark man, said he was the prospective customer in the luggage shop. The defense hinted of bribed witnesses. They pointed out that Chief Investigator Pat Roche, Chicago's ace crime crusader, had illegally held Gangster Brothers for a fortnight before announcing his arrest, during which time Brothers was brutally tortured for information. Cried Attorney Louis Piquett: "The case against Brothers is the most gigantic frame-up since the crucifixion of Christ, 1,931 years tomorrow!"*

Presiding judge was Joseph Sabath, famed arbiter of the Watkins-Bamberger baby mix-up case in Chicago last year (TIME, Sept. 8). He is celebrated for his decisions in divorce cases, speaks nine languages, is brother to and often confused with Congressman Adolph Joseph Sabath of Chicago. In the face of an extraordinary body of conflicting testimony, Judge Sabath instructed the jury to return a verdict of guilty "only if beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty you decide that Brothers actually committed the murder or was present and aided and abetted in it." He ruled, however, that "flight from the scene of a crime may be taken as an indication of guilt. A motive need not be proved." After 27 hours, the twelve men of Chicago returned a compromise verdict of Guilty, with the minimum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment. Defense counsel made motion for a new trial. Gangster Brothers looked relieved (after eight years and three months he would be eligible for parole). Still unanswered was the Chicagoesque question: Why was Racketeer-Reporter Lingle killed? Well demonstrated was the underworld theory: a good place to do murder is in a crowd; lots of witnesses tell lots of stories.

*Incorrect. Most authorities agree that Jesus Christ was done to death 1,901 years ago.

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