The covers of Main 13, the official magazine of the Chicago Police Department published between 1921 and 1923, seem to allude, at first glance, to simpler times for Chicago cops. The glossy magazine ran winsome illustrations of a traffic cop escorting smiling, well-dressed children across the street, a patrolman supervising a game of marbles, and a mounted officer delivering a hot meal to a widow on Christmas. Only the cover of the November 1922 issue depicting a copper shooting into dark alley hints at the dangers police faced nearly 100 years ago.
Main 13: Good Housekeeping meets police tactics#
Although the press was concerned about the meager benefits given to the families of officers who died in the line of duty, the service and life stories of some fallen officers sometimes merited just a handful of sentences in Chicago newspapers. The Chicago Police Department was “more corrupt than ever in its history,” state’s attorney Maclay Hoyne complained in September 1920.
Chicago being Chicago, the mayor occasionally intruded in the magazine. In a meandering piece in the inaugural issue, Mayor William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson reflected on the lessons he learned as captain of the 1896 Chicago Athletic Football team; mused on the reasons why citizens love firefighters but sometimes dislike cops; lectured on how tourist dollars are important to the tax base that pays police; and suggested that anyone suspected of killing a cop should be shot down rather than delivered to court.
The magazine ended its run shortly after Thompson’s term as mayor ended; the new chief of police feared that its advertisements could become a source of corruption. Although crime had fallen during the Fitzmorris regime, his attempt to project the image of the Chicago Police Department as a wholesome if not incorruptible police force would be less successful; shortly thereafter, Chicago entered a phase of gangland crime from which the city’s reputation has never fully recovered.
