DEFYING THE GANGSTERS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 11, 12 July 1930, Page 29

DEFYING THE GANGSTERS

An interesting struggle is now in progress between a Kew York society woman and a band of "racketeers," the. underworld gangsters who prey upon, legitimate business. The woman in question is Mrs. Travis H. Whitney, wife of a wealthy financier and public xitiliiy operator, and the racketeers are those who have for a long time controlled tbe laundry business in Brooklyn, oue of the major subdivisions of New York City, says the "Manchester Guardian." Mrs. Whitney has accepted, without salary, the post of niauafrer of the Neighbourhood Laundry dvmfir,' 4«ioeia-t:ss of Brooklyn, any .rime incumbent of which would be fairly certain of bfcing murdered in trie near future. She believes that the racketeers will not dare to kill a woman, and that she has a chance to begin a far-reaching crusade against the vicious practices with which this industry and many others are infested. The strategy of the racketeers in Brooklyn has been like that followed in many other cities. Some time back an underworld gang directed by one Frankie Yale, or Uale, managed to get control of the laqndryinen's association by intimidation, and thereupon demanded from each of a large number of small individual laundries "contributions" of £3 to £S weekly. Any laundryman who refused this tribute was beaten, or, if ho proved especially recalcitrant, might be "taken for a

WOMAN FIGHTS RACKETEERS

ride" and killed. Instances of a refusal to pay were very rare, and the collections came to £50,000 to £60,000 annually for Brooklyn alone. The laundrymen were further coerced by being forced at a pistol's point to sign promissory notes of £2000 or so each, payable o. demand, which were held over their heads by the gangsters.

The reader may ask why the laundry owners did not appeal to the police or tell in court the coercive character of the promissory notes. The answer is that the gangsters would havo no hesitancy in killing anyone who followed this course, and the police, even if they were not in league with the gang, as they often are, could not promise protection twenty-four hours a day, day in and day out. Sooner or later the man who told would be a victim of a lurking feighteen-year-old Sicilian murderer with a pistol, a murderer probably imported from some other city and paid, perhaps, £10 fpr killing a man he had never seen before and against whom he had no grudge whatj ever.

Frankie Yale was killed about two years ago by a rival group of gansters, but the "graft" continued. Mrs. Whitney will fight the remainder of his gang and others who have been, struggling for control of the industry. New Yorkers are watching with the liveliest interest the beginning of her struggle.