From The Archives - August 2013
Colonel Henry Barrett Chamberlin
This month's selection is an article on the Chicago Crime Commission's first operating director, Colonel Henry Barrett Chamberlin. Colonel Chamberlin was a lawyer by profession, but was better known as a police reporter and editor of the Chicago Record Herald prior to becoming operating director. He was prompted to form the Commission after a robbery at the Winslow Brothers iron plant, where "Ammunition Eddie" Wheed and three others killed two Brinks Express guards after stealing the plant's payroll money. Colonel Chamberlin appealed to the Chicago Chamber of Commerce to sponsor the formation of the Chicago Crime Commission in the aftermath of this robbery, citing crime to be "an organized business, and it must be fought with business methods". Colonel Chamberlin served as operating director from 1919 to 1941, and is heralded for leading the first and most successful citizen's crime commission in the country.