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4 Jake’?). ? ae aor LINGLE The elimination of Racketeer Aloysius Kearney on the morning of June 9 was hot stuff and it sizzled on the front pages of all the newspapers up until 1 o ‘clock—the hour when Alfred (Jake) Lingle, Big Shot police report er for the Chicago Tribune, was assassinated in the midst of a crowd in a subway station, just off Michigan Boulevard. After this Racketeer Aloysius Kearney’s de- mise was relegated to the inside Pages or even kicked out of the papers altogether. Compared to the murder of a newspaper reporter, the murder of a racketeer was absolutely insignificant. Are not racketeers knocked off every day in Chicago? Now who had ever heard of a newspaper reporter being put on the spot? Well here it was at last. City editors all over the land looked at the flashes and told themselves that Gangland had at last stepped over the dead- line. The underworld at last had tried to intimi- - date the upperworld ! What would those cynics say now—those cynics who were always coolly pointing out that gangsters never killed any ex- cept gangsters? The murder of Reporter Jake Lingle, thought the city editors, would surely in- shina dann mess I Spiic WIMNVaRY UY. Well, there you are. It seemed obvious—as obvious as a bill-board that debonair Jake Lingle | was murdered for only one reason—that he was a newspaper reporter full of the low-down. It | seemed to a tearful and sympathetic public that : Jake Lingle was just another ordinary news hound. i.A good news hound of course, a first class one, but still just an ordinary police reporter—one of those seedy-looking chaps who plays cards up in the press room, and comes down to work every day with the ancient query—‘“What’s doing chief ?” And so, with determination in their hearts to call this terrible threat from Gangland, they buried Jake Lingle—the martyr. It was a marvel- ous funeral. It was greater than the defiant funeral the underworld had thrown for amaz- ing Dion O’Banion. It was greater than the laying away of “Little Hymie” Weiss or Schemer Drucci or Mike Genna or ““Dingbat” Oberta. It was greater iti every way, but it was greater most of aii be- cause it was a funeral on which the church did not turn thumbs down. In that one respect Gangland was terribly eclipsed. Jake Lingle, the reporter was buried by the Church. Gangland could not ignore that Bev UscaL, The funeral was held on June 12 from the home of the “martyred reporter,” at 125 North Austin \ 61) “UNOFFICIAL CHIEF OF POLICE OF CHICABOMW— This ix the way alfred (Take) Lingle, reporter for the Chicago Tribune for eighteen Fears, has been described since his assassination on June 3 in & subway just of Bandolph Street and Michigan Avenne. An investigation now under way may determine whether this sinister charge is true or not. Avenue, One newspaperman who went there to weep as well as to write said that it was more befitting a field marshal than a modest newspaper man, Jake lay in a silver-bronze casket—better than the caskets in which Frankie Yale and Schemer Drucci had reposed. It was fianked by floral crosses and lighted candles and draped with an American Flag. Flowers! Flowers! They were everywhere! Jake would have liked that, for he loved flowers and when he lived always had them in his lapel and in his rooms. A. potice reporter who loved flowers! But the most impressive touch of all—a touch which had never graced the funeral of an under- world king—was_the_long, long procession_of policemen which marched. j neral, There @ cops everywhere, ¢ everywhere. They rode on horses, they marched solemnly in line, white- gioved, swinging their sticks. And behind them in beautiful symmetry came representatives from the fire department. Behind the fire department came the bands! What racketeer in heaven or in hell could boast that a band had marched behind his mortal remains? But Jake had four Great Lakes Ni aval bands and three bands from as many fe of the Américan Legion. And Jake, the eporter who had been murdered by Gangland, lso had a military escort. avy \