NEW YORK’S FIGHT AGAINST THE UNDERWORLD.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 17 (Supplement)

NEW YORK’S FIGHT AGAINST THE UNDERWORLD.

A l Capone*s Sordid Wealth. Written for the “ Star ” by George E. Worthington (Member of the New York City Commission on Crime Prevention.)-

A 1 Capone, America's foremost criminal leader, who has always escaped the law’s clutches, this week pleaded guilty to charges of evading income tax and also to conspiracy. He was remanded for sentence. He is liable to a long term of imprisonment, but whether he will be incarcerated remains to be seen; the details of the relations existing between his gang and the police and oourts, which the following article gives, suggest that he will find some way out of this dilemma.

A YEAR AGO a New York policeman was tried by Commissioner Whalen on the charge of conduct unbecoming an officer for associating with a Magistrate at a dinner party. Of course, the specification also included that the dinner was in a night club on the police black list and that among the guests present were some crooks, gunmen and racketeers. One of them, by the way, Joe the Baker, was taken for a ride just recently. The host was a political club, and it was celebrating the return to the city of the Magistrate, its honorary president. Included in the entertaihment was a hold-up supplied by Chicago gangsters, who were in search of a “ murder contract.”

While the usual amount of publicity was given to th§ hold-up and dinner, the public did not seem to become aroused until the trial of the policeman. Some even demanded to know why the Magistrate wasn’t being tried, and then it appeared that the Chief City Magistrate not only had no disciplinary powers over his subordinates but that he did not have any real powers or responsibilities in the control of his court organisation. Indeed, the Appellate Division itself did not have the power to initiate an inquiry on its own. motion. While the public may have had a vague suspicion that all was not well, it was this fleeting glimpse behind the scenes of the administration of criminal justice which aroused the public I from its lethargy. Virtual indifference had met the startling statement of Chief Justice laft a decade ago that the “administration of criminal justice in the United btates is a disgrace to civilisation.” j American newspapers which now are so shocked and alarmed over present i conditions had made no comment four ! years ago when they published a review ! of the Committee of Fourteen’s annual : report in which I said: “Due to the activities of dishonest lawyers, professional bondsmen, fixers and runners, the very springs of justice are being poisoned even before a case crosses the threshold of the Magistrates’ Courts.” . No -widespread publicity had been given to the report of our small comSJ/ttee, under the chairmanship of Mr William Travers Jerome, which had worked patiently for months on the Corrigan Centralisation Plan to prevent the abuses which we recognised were in ex if* ence in the Magistrates’ Courts. • j 6 Club’s celebration with its denouement i n the police trial provided the drama which electrified the city—-which led to the removal of Magistrate Vitale— and which was the forerunner of the present investigation \ ork seems to have formed the hab!t during the past forty years, of periodic municipal house-cleanings. Three of these have roughly coincided with periods of financial depression. It seems that they occur in cycles. During such times New York does not hesitate to wash her dirty linen in public and certain newspapers find in this process the material for circulation increases. ;

The causal factors behind the present investigation differ somewhat- from those of previous investigations. The Lexow legislative inquiry, the unofficial investigation by the Committee of Fifteen, and the Page investigation of the Inferior Criminal Courts were brought about largely because of an unholy alliance which existed between public officials and organised vice. The present conditions are due chieflv to a failure in man power, notably in a

deterioration in the calibre of magistrates appointed, with its inevitable effect on police morale. That this is not unique in New York is illustrated by an experience I had in a nearby city.

I had occasion five years ago to study the Philadelphia Municipal Court at the request of the Bureau of Municipal Research of that city. I found that Philadelphia had at one time, under inspired leadership, set up a splendid piece of court machinery, which had possibilities of exerting a powerful influence against crime in that city. Philadelphia, however, with a political organisation which would put Tammany to shame, promptly placed the whole thing in the hands of politicians. The court had a probation department with unlimited possibilities as well as several highly specialised divisions. To illustrate what happened when the politicians got through with it I’ll cite the case of the boy’s division. The purpose of that division was to prevent boys from becoming criminals. It had an adequate budget; it could have employed outstanding leaders in boys’ work; there were no civil service requirements, and yet here are the qualifications of a few of the men whom I have found had been selected to do the highly specialised work of

preventing crime among boys: two grocers, a barber, a paperhanger, an ex-bartender, all under the supervision of a former prison guard. Very little else was needed to indicate why that court had failed to meet the expectations of its founders. Reign of Parasites. Returning to New York, let us review for a moment what has occurred with reference to our own magistrates

during the past fourteen years. When the terms of the Cobbs and the Frothinghams and the Cornells expired, their places were filled by Vitales,. Simpsons and Goodmans, selected on a purely political basis ; —a basis on which the emphasis was placed on representation of racial groups and districts, rather than on the special fitness of the candidate. Is it any wonder then that our magistrates’ bench has deteriorated and has thus proven most fertile soil for the rapid propagation of the fixers, runners, professional bondsmen and dishonest lawyers ? These parasites have flourished and increased. Ttr~is not surprising that they have stretched out their tentables and fastened them upon members of the Police Department; that they have engineered the framing of women to accelerate their slimy profits. They have not limited their activities to magistrates’ courts but are also not unknown in the federal courts, where the ramifications of the liquor traffic have provided very profitable opportunities.

The present investigation, therefore, has not been combating organised commercialised vice, but the parasites of the magistrates’ courts and corruption and incompetency among the magistrates themselves. Naturally, it has had to give considerable attention to members of the various vice squads, whose duties also include the enforcement of the prohibition and gambling laws. We can hardly expect that these men are any better than the average human being—the peculiarly corrupting influences surrounding the enforcement of liquor and gambling laws are well recognised. It is therefore not altogether surprising that some of the plainclothes men have become involved. While it has become a tiadition of the force to scorn the dirty money of prostitution, it is not reasonable to expect that those who had become involved in gambling and the illicit liquor traffic would live up to that tradition.

Careless reporting by newspapers and the customary lack of discrimination by the public, much of it due to an artificially stimulated hysteria, have cast suspicion on the innocent as well as the guilty policeman. It has broken down the morale of the police to the extent of effectively discouraging

action against all forms of prostitution, at a time when other influences were already at work to cause an increase which would strain the resources and ingenuity of a department completely free from demoralisation. We have only to turn to the recent Illinois Crime Survey to appreciate how relatively free New York has been from organised vice and crime, in contrast to the situation which has existed in Chicago for fifteen years. At the beginning of that period, Chicago’s supercriminal and vice lord, A 1 Capone, was a resident of New York—but New York offered him no opportunities. Vice in this city hadhbeedme disorganised. Its link-up with the liquor traffic in Raines •Law hotels and rear rooms of saloons had been broken up by the initiative of the Committee of Fourteen and the activities of law enforcement agencies. Whatever visions Capone may have had of cornering the vice industry in New York, his prospects for a brilliant tuture were dimmed by the integrity and freedom from political dictation of Commissioner Woods who was proving exasperatingly efficient. Chicago, on the other hand, was in the throes of a political upset. Big Bill Thompson had been elected on the promise of providing an open town. Here was the opportunity that young Capone was seeking. Perhaps he had also heard of Horace Greeley’s advice to the young man, so he followed it. When he reached Chicago he found that a countryman, Jim Colosimo, had already achieved the ambition which A 1 had visualised. Jim had organised Chicago's vice and was known as the king of the underworld—but it was a petty kingdom. His mainstay was a chain of cabarets. A 1 became one of his bodyguards. It gave him an opportunity to survey the situation from the inside. Capone Steps In. He soon noted that there were some rapidly growing suburbs, particularly Burnham and Cicero, which were developing around large steel works and similar plants just otxtside the jurisdiction of the Chicago police. These employed thousands of young men, mainly unmarried and free from home ties. This was the opportunity which he had long sought. Here was the potential market for organising the business of

prostitution; and better yet for his purposes, there was virtually no local government to offer effective police interference. Accordingly Capone promoted the establishment of huge brothels at Burnham and Cicero.

I can give you a first-hand description of one of them. It consisted of a large drinking room with a capacity of more than 100 girls, with passageways leading from it, on both sides of which were small cribs. These were one-storey wooden barracks, containing a succession of small, sordid bedrooms. I visited the place about five o’clock in the afternoon, just before the ejeodus of the afternoon’ shift ’ from the steel works At that time the place was quiet About fifty young girls, -clad in bungalow aprons, were reclining on chairs or lazily playing solitaire.

When the first contingent from the. factory arrived the. scene suddenly changed to animation—drinking, dancing, and the inevitable journey to the sordid cubicle with the hard-eyed young girl, who was herself perhaps just emerging from adolescence. These girls had been recruited from country towns, and also from as far away as France. In fact the place was alleged to be a world market and the occasion of my visit in 1924 was in connection with the League of Nations Study of the Traffic in Women and Girls. My visit, incidentally led to an investigation by the United States Department of Justice. The place still remains one of Al’s favourites as a perpetual and unfailing source of revenue. It no doubt has helped to finance many of his racketeering enterprises. It was not long after his successful establishment of this place that Colosimo took him into partnership. When prohibition came, in 1920, Capone saw the promising possibilities in the liquor racket, especially in'the matter of distribution. Colosimo lacked the vision to see this. He was content solely with his cabarets and brothels. Fortunately for Al’s ambitions, Colosimo soon met with a violent death, and Capone, the heir apparent, mounted to the throne.

Subsequent events leading to Al’s complete domination of the underworld are too well known for minute description, the execution of competitors, the massacre of rival gangs, the murder of

an assistant State attorney, the securing of a corner in the small business rackets, the strangle-hold on Chicago’s police and courts, the murder last summer of a newspaper reporter, and the spectacle of Chicago’s business men raising a million dollars to do battle with Capone’s underworld. His position still seems secure. He showed his gratitude to Big Bill by taking personal command of his gangsters at the polls to _ help return his friend to the leadership of our country’s second largest city.

This story of the rise of Capone is an illustration of how commercialised vice, when permitted, readily lends itself to organisation, and ultimately becomes the backlog of organised crime. The greater its financial success the more money there is available for the corrupting of politicians, policemen, the judiciary, and even legislators. All of this .Chicago is learning from bitter experience. It has organised a Committee of Vigilantes, and its business men have raised a million dollars to fight the situation, all because they neglected to take measures which might have prevented its happening in the first place. What of New York. Serious and complicated as is the situation in New York to-day, it is not yet beyond control. There seems to be no evidence that’vice and crime are organised to the extent that they were in Chicago, even fifteen years ago, before the modern methods of Capone. The cessation of police activity against commercialised vice at the present time, however, coupled with the influences which were already at work, is causing New York to drift rapidly back to conditions parallelling those of twenty years ago. Old forms of exploitation are rapidly returning, particularly in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and conditions are now ripe for the super-criminal, possessing business acumen and organising and executive ability to construct a crime and vice organisation which will put the underworld on top in this city as effectively as Capone has done in Chicago. Prompt action will save us many dollars and perhaps even the lives of many of our young men and women. While vice is yet disorganised it can and must be kept disorganised.

Now what can the business man do to protect himself from this underworld threat? As an individual very little—as one of a group, his possibilities are unlimited. It was in this spirit that the Mayor called together a committee to co-ordinate agencies for crime prevention, which held its first meeting recently. The Committee of Fourteen, which is composed of business men and women interested in the protection of girls and young women, is an even better example, because it has been continuously on the job for over a quarter of a century. This committee enjoys the full confidence of the Mayor, the Police Commissioner and the Chief City Magistrate, and demonstrates that citizens, when properly organised, can make their influence effective.

What organisations of this type can do in such an emergency was indicated in the recommendations submitted by Mr Percy S. Straus, as chairman of a sub-committee of the Committee of Fourteen, at a meeting of private agencies called by the Mayor in January to consider the present situation. These recommendations might well be taken as the essential elements of a business man’s programme in ♦browing into reverse the present position of the underworld. The essentials of these recommendations are:

First, restore the morale of the police. I shall not tire you with a discussion of the mechanics of this, but it should be understood that it is in no sense to be construed as a whitewash or a mitigation of the derelictions of individual members of the force. The practical business man, however, must realise that the city cannot be effectively policed by men who feel that they have lost the confidence of the public. In dealing with prostitution emphasis should be placed on the enforcement of laws against exploitation and the other serious aspects of commercialised vice. Second, machinery must be set up to prevent and put an end to abuses in the magistrates’ courts. This should include the plan to centralise the magistrates’ courts .in the borough of Manhattan and legislation to increase the powers of the Chief City Magistrate so that he will have some real control and responsibility over the magistrates’ courts similar to that of the business executive over his own organisation.

Third, better magistrates must be appointed. The business man ought to insist that all magistrates be absolutely honest as well as otherwise competent. While no change in the method of selection is advocated, a step in the right direction is offered by legislation which would make public the names of all candidates weir in advance of the time of appointment, so that the spotlight of publicity may be focused on all. As Professor Foxwell says, “ There is no panacea for human ills. The nearest approach to it is publicity.” Crippling Crime,

Fourth, the Crime Prevention Bureau in the Police Department must be made permanent by law. I wish to edmmend Commissioner Mulrooney for his vision in quickly recognising those potentialities and in giving the bureau his whole-hearted support. We must recognise, however, that, while it has hardly had a chance to get started, it is already demonstrating its possibilities and it, therefore, should receive the wholehearted support of everyone who sincerely wishes to see a reduction of crime in this city. What the Police Department needs is more science to meet the complex situation of modem city conditions.

Fifth, transfer the licensing of dance halls, night clubs and cabarets to the Police Department. This will not only make the control of such places adequate, as was illustrated when the taxicab licensing was transferred, but it will prevent such places from continuing to serve as breeders of vice and crime. It will transform what is now a liability into a social asset. Wholesome recreation can be made a preventive of and a substitute for crime. . No group of citizens can make its influence fully effective unless it is armed with the facts relating to the problems for which it is seeking a solution. To combat the underworld, it must take a leaf from the experience of the army and navy and organise an intelligence corps which will keep it supplied with information and facts relating to the extent, the plans and the programmes of the underworld. The members of this intelligence staff must have an esprit similar to the high cow* ception of their duties held by officer* of the army and navy intelligence service, and only men of dependability and integrity should be chosen for work. Such an intelligence service make known to the citizen group an* to the Police Commissioner not only the ramifications of the underworld, but may also furnish information as to alleged abuses by plainclothes men assigned to enforce the laws relating to commercialised vice. Finally, the business man must recognise the important part which the speakeasy and a certain type of hideaway night club play in the breeding of commercialised vice and organised crime. This factor is complicated by the existence in New York of a public opinion on prohibition which has created an impression on the police that the public tolerate a discretionary power in the enforcement of certain laws. The business man should insist that all vice and crime-breeding speakeasies be suppressed. (Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.)