North Shore Residents Adopt Resolutions Against Wilson Avenue Association.
Will Call on Harrison
Committee of Fifty Will Present Demand for Revocation to City Executive.
Source: Chicago Record-Herald, 13 June 1911, pg. 3.
Resolutions calling on Mayor Harrison to revoke the license of the Wilson Avenue Bathing Beach Association were adopted last night at a joing meeting of north shore improvement organizations and church congregations in the North Shore Congregational Church. A committee of fifty was appointed to call on the mayor. Another committee of eighteen was appointed to get evidence.
The meeting was called to consider the assault on Mrs. Charles F. Lob. The speakers denounced the laxity of the Town Hall police. One speakers said that unless a change was shown immediately he would make it uncomfortable for some of the policemen who were at fault.
Calls It Public Insult.
"The way the Town Hall police have been managing this district is a public insult to all decent people," said J.M. Mack, president of the North Shore Improvement Association.
"They have made it a point to see that every kind of indecency is allowed to flourish. The activity of the rowdies and the "tomboy" girls on Wilson beach is an outrage and has made it almost impossible for a decent girl to go anywhere near the place. One case of assault on the beach has been brought to my attention and I have received several other letters from parents telling me that their girls have been mistreated. All of the cases have been reported to the police, but have been suppresed by them. They have accomplished nothing.
"I am in possession of several pictures of policemen in rather compromising positions ion Wilson beach and unless there is an immediate change in their behavior I intend to put them on the griddle. It is high time a stop is put to the indecencies that have gone on under the eyes of the police."
Bodine Is Speaker.
W. Lester Bodine, superintendent of compulsory education, followed Mr. Mack, and his denunciation of the police and of the beach and the saloon proprietors was spirited.
Rev. Henry Hepburn said that the grizzly bear dance at its worst had become a fixture at Wilson Beach and that about the only thing left to do was to revoke the license of the beach. "The dance," he said, "is seen here at its worst. It has been barred from the worst cafes and dives, but is allowed to flourish here without molestation."
