LIFE IN AMERICA

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1933, Page 13 (Supplement)

LIFE IN AMERICA

GANGSTERS, ‘RACKETEERS

(By

T.C.L.)

The people of New Zealand may well have exhibited some surprise and incredulity over the statement cabled from Washington last week to the effect that gangsters were laying tribute upon the people of the United States to the enormous extent of £35 per head of population, that the infamous Al Capone, xiow m gaol for a civil offence, in the heights of his powers and opportunities enjoyed an income of £40,000,000 (not dollars), and that crime in that Land of the Free cost the almost inconceivable amount of thirteen billion dollars yearly. But the statement, overdrawn as it seems, would occasion no surprise in America itself, for crime there has now developed into one of the major industries of the country, and flourishes exceedingly whilst legitimate industry and, business falters and staggers and languishes.

To the visitor it is astounding that a nation so powerful, so progressive and so efficient in material and mechanical resources and affairs should for so long have tolerated the conditions that have produced such wholesale lawlessness, bribery and corruption. It is also surprising that the criminal “trust has been able for so long to defy the laws of the land and prey almost with impunity upon the rest of the community. The issuing of the Washington statement is a sign that at last the public are being awakened to a realisation of the dangers and impossibility of the position and are preparing to take measures to combat the terrible evil, but it is destined to be a long and painful and perhaps unsatisfactory process because of gangdoms deep roots, its wide ramifications, its enormous financial powers, its relentless grip upon the judicial, political and municipal systems, and the fear it has managed by its terroristic methods to engender in the mind and the life of the people. To the visitor it would seem that the only effective way to deal with the evil is to cut out the roots and not tinker with the plant and seed, otherwise, like the noxious weed in the body pontic it is it will be bound later to rear its sinister head in some form or other. • And so far there is no evidence that this basic fact is generally recognised, let alone acted upon. All sorts of movements have been organised to stamp out the gangsters and racketeers, and since kidnapping has been recently added to their activities, President Roosevelt has appointed special agents to formulate policies to which effect is now being given. The observance of law and order is not an ingrained or acquired quality in the average American citizen as it is in the Britisher, due probably to a difference in his life, development and environment The task of breaking in a new country, of settling the vast western States, of subduing the native Indians, of loading, bridging and railing the enormous areas of land constituting the United States, of exploiting the enormous natural resources of the land, and founding and developing the tremendous industries and businesses, all called for initiative and self-reliance and independence, and, conversely, produced in the settler an intolerance of restraint and legal trammels and a more or less disregard for law and order. The country was ever expanding, business and industry were prospering, and wages and salaries were high, and no one bothered about adhering closely to the laws of the land or thought seriously of the effect of this indifference upon the future character of the nation. The measure of an individual’s standing in the community was not his worth as a man nor his value as a member of the community, but the number of dollars he was worth and the financial “pull” he exercised. The nation is not a homogeneous one like Britain; it is heterogeneous in the extreme. For decades migrants poured in without selection or restraint from all parts of Europe. Labour, was urgently required to assist in farm production and to man the great industries, and all, even the dregs of Russia and central Europe, were welcomed. The Americanisation of this unpromising human material has proved, and is still proving, a long and difficult process. At least four generations are required to assimilate the material; The first generation has all its national characteristics and weaknesses, and segregates itself wherever it alights. The second generation begins to learn English and forget its foreign tongue and becomes accustomed to the new conditions. The third learns its English and American customs at sc “° ol and begins to despise its forebears. The fourth prides itself upon its American origin and its rights and liberties and acclaims itself a full-blown American, and completely despises its forebears. In New York there are more Jews than there are in Palestine or any other city in the world. There are also more Italians than in Rome or Milan, and more negroes than in Nigeria or on the Gold Coast. In Chicago, a city of three and a-half millions, there are only 130,000 of British origin. Its poligot composition may be gauged by the following figures taken from the census of 1930: Poles, 401,000: Germans, 400,000; Italians, 200,000, Negroes, 233,000; Swedes, 140,000; and so on What an enormous problem this curious admixture represents! But this is not the time to discuss the mixed population question and all it connotes, but it is necessary to mention it in order to have the right background for a proper consideration of the criminal reI gime that, like an old man of the sea, is I stradling and strangling the life of many ■ an American community to-day. Now, much of this polyglot population, practically all those belonging to e Nordic races, have made fine ana successful settlers, improving and enriching the country of their adoption, but there is also a section, much smaller in number certainly, arising from the slums of Europe which is low in mentality, primitive in tendencies, and often criminal in instinct which has transmitted its baa qualities to the present, generation and which constitutes the heirarchy of gangdom and racketeering and kidnapping 1 that are the curse of the country to-day. Unfortunately the environment has not been of a kind to enable them to overcome its hereditary tendencies. And the example set in citizenship by the successful and wealthy elements has not been very helpful. It saw a substantial proportion of these so-called leaders and successful men of business and industry —and sometimes, too, of members of the learned professions— behaving and conducting their affairs or operations in a ! manner that at least was questionable land often was downright dishonest. It saw them treat the law when it conI flicted with their own interests with utter ' contempt. It saw the power that money wielded, and how little the homely virtues and sanctions of life counted in the . political, social and commercial com- ' munity. Was it, therefore, any wonder that with their inherent weaknesses members of this lower stratum fell victims to the allurement of gaining easy money, of ignoring the law, of bribing officials and

of establishing their own system of gang law and practice, with the gun a more 1 effective weapon of enforcement than any fiat of constitutional authority ? How they succeeded and how they have become the greatest curse and menace to the country will be told in this column ■ next week. i .