DEFYING GANGSTERS

Waipa Post, Volume 41, Issue 3186, 9 August 1930, Page 3

DEFYING GANGSTERS

WOMAN FIGHTS RACKETEERS.

An interesting struggle is now in progress between a New York society woman and a band of " racketeers," the underworld gangsters, who prey upon legitimate business. The woman in question is Mrs Travis H. Whitney, wife of a wealthy financier and public utility operator, and the racketeers are those who have for a long time controlled the laundry business in Brooklyn, one of the major subdivisions of New York City, says the " Manchester Guardian." Mrs Whitney has accepted without salary the post of manager of the Neighbourhood Laundry Owners' Association of Brooklyn, any male incumbent of which would be fairly certain of being murdered in the near future. She believes that the racketeers will not dare to kill a woman, and that she has a chance to begin a far-reaching crusade against the vicious practise with which this industry and many others are infested.

The strategy of the racketeers in Brooklyn has been like that followed in many other cities. Some time back an underworld gang directed by one Frankie Yale, or Uale, managed to get control of the laundrymen's association by intimidatiqgi, and thereupon demanded from each of a large number of small individual laundries "contributions" of £3 to £8 weekly. Any laundryman who refused this tribute was beaten, and, if he proved especially recalcitrant, might be " taken for a ride " and killed. Instances of a refusal to pay were very rare, and the collections came to £50,000 to £60,000 annually for Brooklyn alone. The laundrymen were further coerced by being forced at a pistol's point to sign promissory notes of £2OOO or so each, payable on demand, which were held over their heads by the gangsters.

The reader may ask why the laundry owhers did not appeal to the police or tell the court the coercive character of the promissory notes. The answer is that the gangsters would have no hesitancy in killing anyone who followed this course, and the police, even if they were not in league with the gang, as they often are, could not promise protection 24 hours a day, day in and day out. Sooner or later the man who told would be a victim of a lurking 18-year-old Sicilian murderer with a pistol—a murderer probably imported from some other city and paid, perhaps, £lO for killing a man he had never seen before

and against whom he had no grudge whatever.

Frankie Yale was killed about two years ago by a rival group of gangsters, but the " graft " continued. Mrs Whitney will fight the remainder of his gang and others who have been struggling for control of the industry. New Yorkers are watching with the liveliest interest the beginning of her struggle.