Loesch Asserts Thompson Machine Forced Big Bill to Resign---Chicago Cleaner Than N.Y.C.

"Chicago today is a cleaner town than New York," commented Frank J. Loesch, noted Chicago lawyer, in an interview with the CRIMSON yesterday afternoon. Mr. Loesch reviewed his fight to convict Chicago gangsters in a speech he delivered last night in the Court Room of Langdell Hall.

Mr. Loesch grinned slightly when he recalled his first attempts to clean up Chicago under the Thompson regime. "It took us two months to get rid of Big Bill's police chief, Hughes. Once we got him before the grand jury, the Thompson machine itself forced him to resign. The work we then started back in 1928 has not stopped; today men such as Police Chief Allman are valiantly fighting crime in Chicago. Definitely less corruption exists there than in New York.

"There are two main reasons why Chicago gained its former criminal reputation: collustorn between politicians and the police force and a lack of hard prosecution. And, of course prohibition financed the gangster magnificently.

"An aggressive public opinion is the best deterrent to crime. In Chicago, the press backed us unanimously in our fight to clean up the town.

"The Lindbergh kidnapping might have been solved if the federal secret service alone had taken charge of it," continued Mr. Loesch. "It was mishandled because of the professional pride of the New Jersey police. What America needs is a centralized police force as in France. That would allow one officer to pursue his criminal all over the country without consulting bothersome local authorities."

Mr. Loesch was never a member of Colonel Isham Randolph's organization for fighting Chicago gangsters called the "Secret Six." He said some reporter must have been guilty of nicknaming that unmysterious group of twenty.

Mr. Loesch chose for the subject of his speech which he delivered in Langdell Hall last night "The Duty a Lawyer Owes to the Public." In 1929 Mr. Loesch was one of the eleven members of the National Committee on Law Observation and Enforcement, being appointed by President Hoover. Previously, Mr. Loesch had been the state's attorney of Cook County.