Judge Michael L. McKinley standing with a baseball bat on a street Judge M. L. McKinley, a former Chief Justice of the Criminal Court of Cook County, wrote Crime and the Civic Cancer – Graft, an expose of graft and corruption in the courts in 1923. As a former Chief Judge of the Criminal Court he could describe in detail just how the process of corrupting judges and prosecutors worked. The expose was published as a series of articles in the Chicago Daily News in 1923. Periodically during this period newspapers would expose public corruption and the fallibility of government, a role which continues into the present day. The series of articles in the Chicago Daily News was subsequently issued as a pamphlet and is reproduced here in its entirety. It is one of the most detailed accounts of judicial and police corruption ever published.

Contents

• Introduction (PDF - 0.2MB)
• Lifters of the Lid and What Happens to Them (PDF - 2.0MB)
• What’s Wrong with the Criminal Court? (PDF - 0.3MB)
• The Decline of Decency in Public Affairs (PDF - 0.3MB)
• The Partnership Between Politics and Crime (PDF - 0.6MB)
• Incubators of Crime (PDF - 0.4MB)
• A City Ashamed (PDF - 0.6MB)
• The Fight That Failed (PDF - 0.6MB)
• The Fine Art of the Fixer (PDF - 0.6MB)
• The Crime Against the School Children] (PDF - 0.6MB)
• The Silver Teapot and Those Who Filled It (PDF - 0.5MB)
• The Business of Boodling (PDF - 0.6MB)
• The Grafters’ Grip on Government (PDF - 0.6MB)
• The Fate of a Fighting Grand Jury (PDF - 0.6MB)
• A Showdown (PDF - 0.6MB)
• Immunity or Absolution? (PDF - 0.4MB)
• The Paralyzing Force of Party Politics (PDF - 0.6MB)
• Can Chicago Clean Up? (PDF - 0.4MB)