SAFE, QUICK ROAD TO MILLIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18721, 27 November 1922, Page 5

SAFE, QUICK ROAD TO MILLIONS

SCIENTIFICALLY-ORGANISED LAW-BREAKING. RECRUITS COME FROM ALL' CLASSES. (Based on the remarkable series of articles recently contributed by Frederic "William Wile to the Philadelphia Public Ledger.) Frederic William Wilo, the author of the articles from which the following summary is taken, is a journalist of high international reputation. He first came into prominence as correspondent of the- Chicago Eecord and Daily News in the South African War, 1900-1. He reported for American journals the death and funeral of Queen Victoria and the Coronation of King Edward VH. From 1906 to 1914 ho was chief correspondent of the London Daily Mail in Germany,. and Berlin correspondent of the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. At the outbreak of war he was arrested as a British spy, released on the demand of the U.S. Ambassador Gerard, and left Germany under safe conduct of the British Embassy. During the Great War he edited "Germany Day by Day" in the London Daily Mail. At the invitation of the British Government he lectured on behalf of British war loans. The Philadelphia, Public Ledger, the journal to which Mr Wile contributed his remarkable series of revelations concerning the graft, corruption, and scoundrolism which render prohibition in America a tragic farce, prides itself on the accuracy and txclusiveness of its information on subjects of national importance. ' Its columns are contributed to by the best-known journalists in America.

spected occupation of bootlegging." Butthatt is not all; "Recruits to the'bootlegging combine are incessant, and come from every class. Women are entcwinsr the trade ia' increasing numbers. Men who have broken down and failed in other lines—who used to try insurance as a last resort—now turn to bootlegging. In the Bronx there are Italians who recently were cobblers and bootblacks, and to-day are affluent bootleggers owning costly limousines driven by private chauffeurs." But still that is • not all. "Into the industry has gone, if common report is trustworthy, a considerable number of persons, including bankers and capitalists, who see in bootlegging about the quickest and richest assurance of returns on big money that the investment ' world now offers." And Mr Wile further " tells us that there has grown up a group! . of lawyers, "the liquor 'bar," who specialise ;" in defending bootleggers. The income of one of these lawyers in 1921 was estimated at between 500,000 and 1,000,000 dollars. THE INDISCREET MR REMUS. High and low, great and small, the ricH '■ who wish to grow richer and .the poor who will soon be rich, flock to the bootlegging standard. What are the profits? Only one of the bier fellows in the trade has so far had his affairs legally investigated. This was George Remus, of Cincinnati, and George was very indiscreet. As a Cincinnati editor put it, he "virtually stood! uo in. Fountain Square and dared the United Stntes Government to take him." Mr Wile tells the rest of the story as follows: "Remus's career is a Jules Verne romance in criminal hieh finance. His activities extended from New York to California. He bought up distilleries and organised whole-' sale drug" companies. He maintained his , own corps of armed guards. He had his own inter-State auto-trucking service. He offered bribes to prohibition officials amounting in one authenticated instance to 500.000 dollars. His bank deposits ran as high as 60.000 dollars a. day. When arrested on 31st October. 1921, he was depositing at the rate of 10.000.000 collars a year." Remus - was a gay bird, and on New Year's Ev© h« held a great orgy at his mansion in the fashionable Quarter of Cincinnati to crcen his new 40,000 dollar Roman swimming' bath. -SHALL WE. TOO. OPV.V THAT ROAD TO RICHES? As Mr Wile nuts it: "The party was very wet —inside and outside. Professional bathing nymphs, brought down from Chicago for the occasion, were the piece de resistance. One of the star stunts is said to have been provided by Remus himself, when he dived from a springboard into the new pool in full evening dress." Well, Berrms was brought to trial, together with his nrincir>al associates, nnd got three vears' gaol, wiih fines total- • liner 12.000 dollars. Mr Wile comments that the penalties were "not approximately as severe as crimes of such macrnifcud<y call for." Mr Remus will leave gaol an Immensely wealthy man. But if one man. and he not one of the New _ York principals of the bootlegging combine, but a sort of district agent in a. distant. State, could bank money at the ratpi of 10,000.0C0 dollars a year, that gives a hurt of the magnitude of-the industry and of (he tremendous temptations which a nro'lihition law places 'in the "-ay of dnllnrlovine Americans. No wonder, to use the President's phrase, the "foundations of the nation nre beinc undermined." It is so etsy to blame the* bootleggers, but does not the major resnonsibility rest upon those who gave the bootlegger his easy road to wealth? Are we going to follow that ' example and make evasion of the law the best-paying industry in New Zealand. —■ Advt.

FULL SCOPE FOR NATIONAL GENIUS. Americans excel in the large-scale organisation of industry, commerce, or finance, and the national genius, according to Mr Wile, has had full Bcope in connection with the great national industry of bootlegging. "Prohibition," he says, "is flouted and constitutional law defied in New York by a ruthless, powerful combination of rich bootleggers allied with influential politicians and financiers. They are leagued in a secret brotherhood, which has so much money and so much 'pull' that it defies suppression. The combination has no official corporate existence, regular name, or recognisable headquarters, yet it functions, silent and sinister, with the precision and comprehensiveness of a great industrial organisation. That is precisely what the bootlegger combine is. It exists to promote, scientifically and systematically, the illicit liquor industry not alone of Now York but of the country at large, for the magnates of the game, the master minds, are at its head. All the major operations in smuggling, bribery, and forgery are under their direction. They regulate the supplies of, illicit liquor brought into the country. They fix its . prices. They arrange for protection.' " "OBJECTS" OF 1 THE BOOTLEG COMBINE. Mr Wile gives an example of the efficiency of the control exercised by this junta of conspirators over their illicit trade. "The other day," ho saj's, "Scotch whisky was sold throughout Greater New York at 83 dollars a case. Whether one dealt with a bootlegger in Lower Broadway, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Tarrytown. Long Island, or Hoboken, the price was uniform. It had been fixed from bootleg headquarters just as the price of wheat is fixed on the Chicago Board of Trade, or wool on the Boston Wool Exchange." The methods employed to "protect" those engaged in this law-defy-ing business will be dealt with at length in a subsequent article, but as an instance of the efficiency of the protection Mr Wile's statement may here be given that out of 10,000 persons arrested in New York Oitv in 1921 for Prohibition violation, the magistrates released one-third, the grand juries released another third, and only about one in three was even sent to trial! Mr Wile gives the major "objects" of the bootleggers' combine as follow: 1. To fix prices. 2. To regulate supplies so that the market may not be unduly glutted and prices unduly depressed. 3. To divide territory into non-epmpetitive selling zones. 4. To place useful officials, through political influence, at strategic posts in the Prohibition enforcement service. 5. To provide mutual financial assistance. 6 To maintain friendlv relations with all blanches of Federal, State, and municipal government concerned with the administration of liquor laws, particularly the prosecuting authorities and courts. 7. To arrange for regular shipments to the United States of heavy consignments of foreign spirits. WHO GOES BOOTLEGGING? Mr Wile sneaks of a "popular conviction that violation of the liquor laws is the easiest, surest, and quickest road to the millionaires' reservation now open in our land of unlimited oossibilities." Who takes this road? Let Mr Wile tell: "Entire droves of professional 'con' men, gunmen, secondstorey operators, burglars, thieves, safe-blow-ers and pickpockets have deserted their old trades for the far more lucrative and re-