BLACKMAILING IN AMERICA.

Otago Witness, Issue 3276, 27 December 1916, Page 27 (Supplement)

BLACKMAILING IN AMERICA.

Eight members of an alleged blackmail gang, charged with using the beauty of •their women members and the fascinating powers of their male confederates to mulct wealthy men and women out of more than .250,000 dollars, are in custody of Federal authorities in Chicago, and will be taken -to Philadelphia for trial. The band, in-

eluding five men and three women, were won attention from wealthy men and then, arrested in a raid by Department of Justice it is alleged, the men threatened their officials in a fashionable apartment hotel. victims with prosecution under the Mann They are accused of fleecing men and women Act. The chief charge against the band of social prominence in Chicago, Baltimore, is the alleged kidnapping of Mrs Regina H. New York and Philadelphia through organ- j Clifford, of Philadelphia, one of their viclsed efforts. Their scheme, according to tiros and wanted as a Government witness. Mr Hinton G. Clabaugh, of the Depart- She was spirited away to Canada, at the tnent of Justice, was to compromise their time she was wanted to testify against the victims and then blackmail them. Im- band. Mr Clabaugh saij there were 15 personation of Department of Justice offi- known victims of the gang, and that the eials is another charge against the men. amount obtained from these victims proThe women confederates are said to have bably will reach 250,000 dollars. Forty

thousand dollars were obtained from one person and 35,000 dollars from another. The authorities refused to reveal the names of the victims. Some, it was said, are men prominent in political life who were victimised whils at the .Republican Convention last June. As a result of the exposure of this band of blackmailers, a widespread demand is being made for the repeal of the White Slave Traffic Act, which has made the operation of such a band easy. When the White Slave Traffic Act, usually called the Mann Act, was reported

by the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Representative Adam-.-on, of Georgia, said that its provisions were " liable to furnish boundless opportunity to hold-up and blackmail." Such newspapers as v ore not obsessed by the then prevailing myth of an international and interstate " syndicate" trafficking in women took the same view, besides pointing out the inherent absurdity of promoting a police court offence into a Federal felony by the mere crossing of a State line.