THE SMALL WAGES OF SIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19496, 27 November 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SMALL WAGES OF SIN.

CRIME W NEW YORK. ROBBERS AND THEIR LOOT. LOW PERCENTAGE OF PROFIT. BIG- RISKS FOR TRIVIAL SUMS. Tha small share of the proceeds of their crime that are divided by thieves of various types in New York was recently commented upon by the New York Police Commissioner, Mr. McLaughlin, writes Thomas Dawson in the New York HeraldTribune. Mr. McLaughlin is not a criminologist. Ho is merely an energetic individual filling a difficult post and determined to fill it adequately. Criminals interest him today because they are immediate problems. Academic theories of crime have no particular interest for him. He is too much the man of action. With characteristic directness, he has talked to these young men about their crimes, their families and themselves. He has met young Whittemore, the shrewd, systematic Kramer brothers, who are now in Sing Sing, the silly but dangerous group of youths known as the 'cake-eater" bandits, the sorry quintet of underworld striplings who are called the "cry baby" gang, and others of lesser notoriety. Mr. McLaughlin has come to certain conclusions, based on the lives of those, with but one or two exceptions, young men. One of his marked beliefs is that criminals are not born, but made. And another conviction he has is that young men who think they can wring profit out of committing crimes are "just fools." The Making oi Criminals. As the commissioner talked of the socalled "profits" of crime, a note of impatience came into his voice. Youths who commit hold-ups, to him, betray an extraordinary lack of common sense. Less «ihan a year out of his former position of State Commisioner of Banking, he weighed criminals in the scales on the basis of what they "make" in money, and found their "business" the worst of all possible investments. "They talk about the 'big money' criminals get away with," he said. "That's all bunk. Criminals, at least the ones I've met down here, are broko the greater part of the time, in spite of their burglaries and hold-ups. That's why they keep on committing crimes. It's only one criminal in a million who gets away with it." Mr. McLaughlin spoke about the "making" of criminals. I don't take any stock in 'born' criminals," he said. "Criminals, in my opinion, are made almost entirely from association and environment. You find certain types of young men who want 'easy money.' They want it for dancing, drinking, cabarets, etc. They think they can get it by committing holdups or burglaries. Every morning we find a dozen or more young men in the lineup at headquarters here and the first question we ask them is: 'What do you do?' The usual reply to that question is: "I'm a salesman.' Then we ask them where they work and they say, 'Well, I guess the last, selling job I had was about six years ego.' The Lure ol " Easy Money." "We find that on an average about one per cent, of the young men brought into the lineup either have an occupation, or are actually employed. They seem to show a marked unwillingness to work, but at the same time they want to get hold of the 'easy money.' It isn't that jobs are hard to find in New York today. Our investigation shows there are plenty of jobs around. They don't want to work for money, but they're willing to steal. Sometimes we do encounter a young man who has been working steadily at some employment and has come in contact with a persuasive criminal. Maybe he has had trouble paying his bills. The criminal will flash a roll of money and tell him how 'easy' it is. He may try out a holdup or two to his sorrow." Mr. McLaughlin emphasised the stupidity of crime. "Of course," he said "a yonng fellow with criminal tendencies who doesn't like to work may read of a £20,000 jewel robbery and be foolish enough to think that a thief who steals that much in diamonds gets good pay for it, and he may make up his mind that he'll do the same thing. Tf he knew the facts as We know them down here and he had sense, he conld not be dragged into committing a crime. Why, everybody cheats the thief after the thief has stolen. The gamgler gets a good hold of it, and the rest of it goes like water." " The Test of Dividends." Evidently Mr. McLaughlin does npt believe in the adage "honour among thieves," for he pointed out that the members of one famous gang, who were frequently fleeced by gamblers, attempted in turn ,to "fleece" and steal from each other. The commissioner made a few notations on a pad at his elbow. Former Banking Commissioner, he was applying to the youthful marauders who have been brought before him the test of dividends. "We II take all the mora prominent bur glars and hold-up men tnat have been captured since I took office," he said, adding: "They're the only ones 1 know about. There are enough of them, though, to show what T'm after. " The Wtttemore gang ended up broke. I suppose they were about as finished products altogether for criminals as anybody can find. In the case of the Kramer brothers, who planned their crimes, I must admit there is an exception. The Kramers, however, are unusual criminals—you won't find their like in another thousand or more, It is generally believed they have money salted away. It doesn't do them much good, however, for they're serving forty years •piece in Sing Sing. The others didn't nave a cent when we arrested them. Whittomore, who was hanged in Baltimore, was broke after his arrest and had to have a lawyer assigned to defend him wherever he went." "The same was true of Paladino, Unkelbach and Goldberg. We estimated that their loot approximated around a quarter of a million dollars. Like all other criminals, they gave most of it away to professional gamblers. These men were far better paid for their crimes than the average criminal, because they had a pair of good brains to drive bargains with all the fences. Most of the time the criminal gets 5 per cent, or 10 per cent, of the value of the stuff he stole and considers himself lucky. That's how crime pays. Whittemore died on thti gallows. The rest are in jail. And these men were supposed to bo the best in the business." Fate ol " Stick-XJp " Men. The Commissioner cited the so-called "cake eator" gang next, in which Herbert Koerber, eighteen years old, was the main figure. Koerber is now in the death house at Sing Sing, convicted of murderJug a keeper on one of the In^ n y ,".st,ick-up jobs ' tha gang was invo ved in. The other four boys in the ganjf—one of them sixteen, two of them «i;nrr - fourth nineteen—are in \fr mli i T i? m twent y years to life, the fact that the t0 h °T beries were carefulS S ?1 crimJSd 0 Ift ■' Kramer brothers drafted iJS; *i, "mob" —the police had Dierewl ■ j lr -

In the case of the Koerber gang, of which the members were to a large extent subnormal mentally, the twenty or more hold-ups were committed haphazard. The main victims were keepers of lunchrooms and restaurants. The youth of the bandits, and their association with school " friends," at firs? kept suspicion from the Koerber bandits. " Their loot altogether, we estimated," said the Commissioner, " approximated about £2OOO. It was the old story there. Easy money for drinking, shows, cabarets and girls. The £2OOO did not last long. When they were arrested they didn't have enough money to hire lawyers. One of them is ia 4 the death-house. The rest are in jai] with long terms to serve. All of them are broke. They had to keep on committing hold-ups after they started.'' Holding-up of a Bank.

The Commissioner took up the case oi' the so-called " ciy-baby " bandits —five of whom were convicted of the hold-up oi a bank, the sixth youth, named O'Connor, being captured subsequently. These youths, convicted already of one crime, were tried for a payroll robbery and received sentences ranging from forty years to life. Their robberies, according to what they told us down here at headquarters," ho said, " brought them about £3OOO or £3200. They didn't have any of it left when we arrested them. They spent some of it in cabarets and lots of it went to the gamblers. They told of b'?ing professional gamblers themselves. That was just a ' cover ' to explain the fact that they hadn't worked at any honest livelihood. The truth of the matter is that they gambled just like other criminals and lost the greater part of the money they stole. " The professional gambler is, of course, a source of crime. I've said that before. He's the fifst one to give the released criminal a dollar and when the criminal does his job and has money for loot from the fence, the gambler is the first one to get his pickings. He doesn't leave very

much. Criminals are the support and livelihood of professional gamblers. " I can't see how it doesn't sink into the brains of these young men who want ' easy money ' that there's in crime," the. Commissioner said. "It must be dawning on them that only fools are trying to get away with it. Why, there's the window-smashing gang we brought in a day or two ago. Three of them showing a tendency to get away from the hold-up game and to try the old window-smashing game. ! " The job we got them for was the smashing of a window in a jewellery shop, in. which they got hold of a tray of rings worth about £I2OO. They took the jewellery to a fence and he gave them £3O for* the lot. They got exactly £lO apiece for that job that will land all of them in jail. And for £I2OO worth of stuff they received exactly £3O. That's about 2 per cent." Suits of Clothes Sold, for £l. The same gang, the Commissioner pointed out, had stolen fur coats worth thousands of ddllars, which they sold to fenceo for £l2 apiece. They stole suits of clothing, also, and received for them about £1 apiece, less than 10 per cent of their value. Each robbery they committed, he pointed out, supplied them with only enough money for two or three

days. Their record of crime showtd they had been forced to smash another shop window and steal more merchandise every third of fourth day. Their series of burglaries-—they smashed eight shop windows in a - period of four weeks—netted them a few hundred dollars, which they split three ways. " They had nothing when we got them," the Commissioner said. " They'll probably get long terms in gaol They're outstanding examples." Another example cited by Mr. McLaughlin was the case of young Thomas Bergner, an employee of a scales company, who in a period of nine days committed nfore than half-a-dozen hold-ups. He needed £3O " in a hurry " and after getting hold of a pistol began to " stick up" restaurants. His series of holdups netted him about 220. " He'll go to Sing Sing for twei y years under the new laws, Commit oner McLaughlin said. "He wanted only £3O and he couldn't get it. Instead, he's ruined his life. I would call that an outstanding | example, too."