(Melchizedek Communique, MC1229b08) The murder of Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle (image shown) on June 9, 1930, "caused Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the owner of the Tribune, to join forces with Frank Loesch, Burt Massee, and Calvin Goddard." [1]

Loesch, Massee, and Goddard are identified by Dennis E. Hoffman, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska (ca. 1993), as belonging to a group of "crime crusaders" who fought a "private war" against Al Capone. The crime crusaders have come to be known as the Secret Six, although the group's membership does not seem to have been exactly six persons. Hoffman, in Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders, roughly identifies the main members of Secret Six as: (1) Charles G. Dawes; (2) Frank J. Loesch; (3) Burt A. Massee; (4) Calvin Goddard; (5) Colonel Robert R. McCormick; (6) Henry Barrett Chamberlin; and (7) Robert Isham Randolph. [2]

A mythology of Eliot Ness and the Untouchables has, for some reason, been superimposed upon the true story of the Secret Six. The myth of Eliot Ness hides a deeper truth about the battle against Prohibition-era gangsters in Chicago.

In the immediate frenzy which followed close on the heels of the Jake Lingle murder, Colonel McCormick of the Chicago Tribune roared, in an editorial, that Lingle had been killed because, as a police beat reporter, he was too good at his job. "The Outfit", as organized crime in Chicago is called, had gone too far. Before too long, however, "the image of Lingle the reporter deteriorated to Lingle the racketeer... It soon became clear Lingle consorted with the underworld and earned extra money as a middleman between Chicago politicians and the Capone organization." [3]

By July 7, 1930, less than a month after Jake Lingle's murder, Time magazine reported on "Jake Lingle, Racketeer, who sold for fat sums the power of his newspaper to politicians, gamblers, crimesters, without his employers — who paid him $65 per week — knowing much about it." [4]

Harry T. Brundidge, a reporter for the St. Louis Star, visited Chicago and dug beneath the surface of the Lingle murder. Brundidge charged that several newspaper reporters in Chicago were "racketeers." The word on the street was that Lingle had been the "unofficial chief of police of Chicago" and another reporter was the "unofficial mayor of Chicago." Brundidge advocated a grand jury investigation of various reporters in Chicago. [1]

Eventually grabbed for the Lingle murder was Leo Vincent Brothers, held in a secret jail by "crime crusader" forces. Defenders of Brothers argued that he "had been stalked and apprehended by an agency set up and paid for by the [Chicago] Tribune." Brothers was identified by witnesses as being present at the scene of the Lingle murder, but no witness was able to testify that he actually saw Brothers fire the fatal shot. Leo Vincent Brothers was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment on April 2, 1931. [1] [3]

------- Sources -------
[1] Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders, by Dennis E. Hoffman. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993
[2] Hoffman, op. cit. From chapter 2, "Who Were The Crime Crusaders?"
[3] Illinois Crime, by Bill Nunes. Apparently self-published, 2002. ISBN: 0-9646934-2-9
[4] "Martyr Into Racketeer", Time magazine, July 7, 1930