DRINK GRAFT SCANDAL.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19448, 23 October 1928, Page 9

DRINK GRAFT SCANDAL.

I CRIMINAL RING IN PHILADELPHIA. MACHINE GUNS AND BRIBES. (from our own cobbespondent.) LONDON, September 7. Philadelphia, "the city of brotherly love" (writes a correspondent of the "Westminster Gazette' 5 ), is usurping the reputation for organised crime which Chicago, hitherto, has flaunted before the world. Growing indifference to public opinion regarding criminals—who are advised by expert lawyers, fortified with an elaborate bookkeeping system to record and control graft, and protected by some of the highest officials —has resulted in a Grand Jury investigation and a report which would be incredible if it were not official, in its revelation of crime as a business. The irony of the situation is that the City is controlled by William Vare, political boss and ally of Andrew Mellon, Secretary to the Treasury, a man whose election to the United States Senate was so scandalous that he was refused a seat, and whose sudden announcement at the Republic Convention forced the Republican Party leaders to give way to the demand for the nomination of Mr Hooker. Bullet-Proof Vests. The report reveals the amazing fact that the number of "speak-easies" in Philadelphia is 10,000. These "speak-easies," or liqutor houses, are mostly known to the police, and permitted under a recognised system of bribes or fines. Gangsters, armed to the teeth, have indulged in assault, robbery, and murder, and a shop has been discovered where machine-guns, bullet-proof vests, and silencers for revolvers were sold, and no questions asked. The proprietor, now in the hands of the police, says he thought they were bought to protect the banks. This man has sold as many as 450 machine-guns, and can give no information as to where they have gone. The highly-organised criminal ring not only bought an arsenal of weapons, but is believed to. have set aside, in banks, £2,000,000 as insurance against "a rainy day" for the leading members. The money has been placed in leading banks under fictitious-names. Police Chief Bribed. Members of the gang lived in magnificent, if vulgar, style. It is estimated that their profits in the last six years amount to £10,000,000. Such a vast scheme was only possible with the connivance of the police. Books have been found recording regular payments by one of , the firms in the bootlegging ring to the police, year in, year out, at 50 to 500 dollars a month. One ominous entry reads: "10,000 dollars (£2000) to head cop." ' ' Police graft for permitting lorries of liquor to pass through the streets "and "speak-easies" to remain open is estimated to total at least £200,000 a year. Policemen have offered large sums to be transferred to units where graft 13 plentiful. , The recent enquiry has been forced by the outspoken comments of Judge Edwin Lewis. He says it has been common knowledge for two years that one of the chief city streets is the haunt of bootleggers, yet in four years he has had only one bootlegger before him. A'constant procession of witnesses have passed before the Grand Jury. One mild-looking little man has been in and out twenty times. He the sporting fraternity as "Booboo Hoff, and "the newsboy beer baron. He is regarded as head of the criminal gang. Officials think that some of the metn ods of organisation and control are beyond .him and are seeking the hidden genius behind the ring. When he is found it is believed that wholesale arrests of police officials will take place in one coup. .. . .. Mayor Mackey, a lieutenant or Vare's, issued a sudden order to the police yesterday to close all 'speak pnsies'" The demoralisation of tne force 'is shown by the fact that many, of them spent the evening drinking in the very places they had been sent to close.