AMAZING BLACKMAIL

Hawera Star, Volume L, 15 January 1931, Page 8

AMAZING BLACKMAIL

EVIL IN UNITED STATES.

VICTIMISING BUSINESS

Thut general revolt against extravagantly vieious crime conditions in the United .States to which the righteous have looked forward with faith, though oft disappointed, seems to be nearer. Officialdom is waking up. On November 21 the Federal Government, under the lead of Attorney-General Mitchell (savs the New York correspondent of the* ‘‘Observer,” Loudon), announced that the Hoover Administration had be<ruii a war of extermination and would continue the greatest recorded Federal effort against disorder and dishonest} until the nation had been normalised, with or Without the co-operation of local authorities, Upon the same national scale which surely •characterises the efforts of gangdom. . .. The Attorney-General says lie believes that Chicago is the most acutely affected of any population centre, and into that city have been thrown many federal agents skilled in combating organised violation not only of the laws concerning bootlegging, but associated witn the white slave traffic; narcotics and immigration irregularities. The Federal Government now stands pledged to war upon, the promotion of vice and especially on the comparatively new crime of blackmailing business. Curiously enougii, the Federal income lax regulation, penalising failure to report till sources of income, has been more effective than the criminal law ailned directly at the principal offences probably because of bank co-operation but direct action is promised now.

EXTENT OF THE EYIT

That freeborn business men under the influence of American traditions should abjectly submit to such domination by the banded blackmailers and thugs known collectively as “racketeers,” as is revealed in New York, speaks ill for the modern spirit. It is declared that complaints Already .indicate an actual annual blackmail paid in New York City of £20,000,000. . The same scandal exists in a lessei degree in smaller cities, A\hilc coiiditions surpassing even those -of New York, plague Chicago. Chicago the acknowledged centre of “racketeering,” which means blackmail under threats of financial loss, and personal injury, with murder as the final rebuke for laggards. Virtually every trade, vocation and commercial or industrial activity in the metropolitan region to-uay is shadowed by grim threats.

To give sonic idea of the seriousness of the extortion, it is stated that racketeers are at present levying a tribute of three halfpence a hundred-weight on all freight from ships or railways at New York docks or railway terminals. Every failway and all steamship companies but one are systematically victimised.

HOW THE CONSUMER SUFFERS

Apparently this “racket” is a graft of banded drivers for money, paid by employers direct to them. How' they later divide with the leaders is a mysterv. Refusal means material positively unmoved or possibly destroyed. Of course, the criminal surcharge is eventually added to the retail price, and thus passed on to the consumer. Labour unions are also mulcted, every member of one (unaffiliated with the American Federation of Labour) being assessed eight shillings weekly, with no pretence of giving value other than immunity from further persecution. Nearly all union musicians must pay four Shillings daily or risk injury or loss of their job. Laundrynlen are especial victims, many establishments having been dramatically wrecked.

The prosecutor who has exposed these, and many other details, pledges himself to find and drive out the offenders, though New York is absorbed by the miseries of hard times, iuid is curiously apathetic to all such matters.