HIRED KILLERS

Otago Witness, Issue 4066, 16 February 1932, Page 9

HIRED KILLERS

AMERICAN MURDER “COMMISSIONS ” LETTER TO DUNEDIN RESIDENT. Evidence that human life is but an insignificant factor in the illegal pursuit of the dollar, and that the dollar itself is still almighty in the United States has been provided by many talented fiction writers of the Edgar Wallace school, and also by the Hollywood productions, but in most of these cases one allows a fairly wide margin for a fertile imagination. Occasionally, however, just when the credulity of the law-abiding New 'Zealander is beginning to feel the strain from a succession of gangster and racketeering pictures and novels, comes confirmation of the freedom with which the American criminal is enabled to discharge his pistol from some handy veranda post or from the back of a motor car at some citizen whose last impression on earth is that he has been “ bumped off ” or “ put on the spot.” Such a letter has been received by a Dunedin citizen from an American living in Los Angeles, who gives a few details concerning the manner in which one can dispose of one’s business rivals for just a few dollars. On reading his letter one detects a note of pride in the efficiency of the system—it is a breezy account in which death is spoken of as though it were a grand joke on the deceased. “Crime is rampant, and murder all over the country is as common as golfing,” he writes. “ You can have a man put out of the way for a few dollars, and in the big cities there are bands of professional killers. It is therefore difficult to catch the man behind the crime. For instance, if I wish to have a man ‘ bumped off ’ who is interfering with my graft here in Los Angeles, I get in touch with some gangster here, and he imports a couple of killers from Chicago or some other city, who are unknown to our police. They have someone point out the man to be put away, lay for him, and fill him full of slugs, and then calmly jaunt back east like any other tourist. The responsible man does not appear in the affair, and may be out of the State at the time. Once in a while they pop off the wrong man, owing to their being unacquainted with him, which is tough luck for the innocent.”

The writer goes on to say that “ all of this gangster stuff ” can be directly traced to the liquor traffic. “ Even the children here are developing into drunkards in some cases,” he states. “as they cannot be protected from bootleggers. In the days of the old saloon there was a law forbidding the sale of liquor to minors, and it was enforced, but now there are no laws that can protect them, and where there is supposed to be no liquor there can be no laws to govern it. “ The great trouble in getting liquor back is the influence of the church element and the rural districts, who will not see the bad results of present conditions. However, the rural districts all have their bootleggers, and the referendum vote might surprise us. There is considerable agitation here against prohibition at present, and something may develop tq kill it this year. There are several Bills now pending in Congress, but it is a question whether they can overcome the opposition of the ‘ long hairs ’ yet.”