BIG GRAFT SCANDAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 304, 8 December 1931, Page 8

BIG GRAFT SCANDAL

CORRUPTION IN NEW YORK. New York, November 20. A staggering picture has been revealed of the municipal greed and graft of New York that makes the raiding by Tweed and Croker some years ago seem amateurish. Two thousand five hundred witnesses have been examined by Mr S. Seabury, tho official investigator, and the result shows that “no city ever approached the corruptions of New York.”” Mr Seabury has found that Tammany politicians exact a toll of many millions of dollars yearly from the citizens and official bureaux. Nino Democratic leaders have amassed bank accounts totalling £2,000,000 in the last six years. • • The Municipal Relief Fund has yielded thousands in graft, and twelve recent suicides have been traced in some form or other to the shame and exposure caused to the victims of the grafters. A lawyer and a former Tammany leader has banked profits of over £1,000,000 since 1925, but he refused to offer any explanation, on the ground that “fees were sacred.” Another man was found to have £400,000 in his bank account, and a sheriff said that he made his £120.000 in a livery stable business. “Made it on the market” and “an uncle who died somewhere in Australia and left it” were the explanations for two accounts of £30.000 each. Two magistrates have been removed from office and five have resigned, while four police captains have been sentenced to five ears in Sing Sing.