For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago by Simon Baatz

Author:Simon Baatz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Non-Fiction, Chicago, 20th Century, WI), Illinois, Criminals & Outlaws, Midwest (IA, Murder, True Crime, ND, NE, Law, State & Local, United States, Legal History, IL, IN, History, OH, MO, MN, MI, General, KS, Case studies, Biography, Biography & Autobiography, Murderers, SD
ISBN: 9780060781026
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2009-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

WHILE ROBERT CROWE AND CLARENCE Darrow each argued his case in the pages of the Chicago newspapers, a novel proposition, one that neither side had anticipated, suddenly elbowed its way into the discussion about the coming trial.

The trial would be held in the principal courtroom in the Criminal Court Building, yet the demand for seats would clearly outstrip the available supply. Every major newspaper in the United States planned to send at least one reporter to cover the trial, and inquiries had already been received from press agencies in Cuba, Argentina, Canada, Britain, Italy, and Australia. The courtroom could accommodate only 200 spectators, and few seats would be available for members of the Chicago public who wished to observe the trial. Why not, therefore, broadcast the proceedings on the radio so that everyone in Chicago could hear the testimony as it unfolded in court?

The publishers of the Chicago Daily Tribune owned station WGN. On 17 July, in a front-page editorial, the newspaper proposed that the trial be broadcast in its entirety. Would not such a step serve to educate the public in the workings of the criminal justice system? The more the general public knew about civic affairs, the better. Political corruption and malfeasance would have few opportunities to flourish if an educated populace felt a keener sense of public responsibility. “It is bromide among persons occupied in civic affairs,” the editor of the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote, “that the public should be more interested than it is in events of social importance…. It has been the attitude of English and American law that the greater the degree in which the people enter into the enforcement of the law, the more publicity given to trials by law, the greater the degree of justice.”61

But not everyone subscribed to the view that broadcasting the Leopold-Loeb trial would serve unambiguously as a civics lesson. Nor was it evident that radio was a suitable medium for the transmission of such a sensational and lurid event as this trial. In 1924 radio was in its infancy—not even a majority of American households owned a radio set—and, unlike the movies, radio had yet to become a mass medium. Only the more prosperous families had a radio, and as a consequence radio was still an exclusive phenomenon. The movies and the tabloid newspapers catered explicitly to plebeian audiences; the radio, in contrast, served a patrician listenership that valued the evening programs as a source of cultural uplift. And radio was more intimate and more personal than either the newspapers or the movies; the speaker’s voice directly entered the family circle and carried its message to each listener as though he or she alone constituted the audience.62

In the early 1920s, social commentators assigned various roles to radio, but none of those roles meshed easily with the broadcast of a sensational murder trial. Evangelical leaders hoped that radio could be used to promote religious sentiment; high-minded politicians expected that radio would foster thoughtful debate on the issues of the day and help eliminate demagoguery.

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