RACKETEERING.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18168, 5 November 1930, Page 14

RACKETEERING.

SYSTEM IN OPERATION. blackmail and terrorism. The growing domination of political and public life in the United States by criminal gangs is illustrated in a graphic message from . the Daily Mail’s correspondent, Sir Percival Phillips. ' , His revelations are of special interest in view of the recent announcement that “Scarface” A 1 Capone, the Chicago gang leader, has formed a Cabinet of Crime to consolidate and control his multifarious interests, chief of which is the sale of bootleg beer.

A new autocracy has sprung up in the United States. It is founded on blackmail and maintained by terrorism (writes Sir Percival Phillips). Americans, with their habitual readiness to find new names for new institutions, have christened this depressing development of democracy “racketeering."

' " X - A Close Corporation. The word comes from the underworld, like the system itself. It may have grown out of the slang fexpression “standing the racket." If so, it is appropriate. Americans are undeniably standing it. A “racket" is a close corporation of criminals with an' executive arm consisting of gunmen. It levies tribute on public or pnivate revenue. The head is a master criminal who has risen above the dead level of individual effort in crime by sheer personality, undoubted business ability, and ruthless daring. His loyal followers carry out his orders and share proportionately in the profits. In other words, the robber gangs of the Middle Ages, the pirates of the 18th century, the Maflsti of Sicily, duplicated iff a 20th century setting, costumed like successful Babbitts, equipped with automatics, and operating on a cashregister basis with the skill and accuracy of a great industrial corporation. Let us' imagine an example of racketeering in London. An East End gentleman possessing notorious fingerprints and a following with ramifications in, Pentonville decides that Covent, Garden Market offers admirable opportunities for collecting “easy money.” The word goes out to the dealers in fruit, flowers, and vegetables that they must pay a certain amount per week to accredited agents of the “Big Man." If they refuse their employees are beaten, perhaps killed; the farmers and market gardeners with whom they deal are forced to cut off their supplies, and business, without the payment of blackmail becomes impossible. Or the racketeering agents concentrate on the farmers and market gardeners, and those withholding tribute find their produce barred from Covent Garden.

Or, what is more likely, both ends of the market combination are taxed simultaneously.

Naturally you ask, “But what about the police?" The answer is painfully simple. We must carry the illustration further by assuming that the Metropolitan police and the magistrates are on the racketeers’ pay-roll. With the whole machinery of the law impaired It is impossible for conscientious objectors to blackmail to obtain redress. In. the .end they surrender or go out of business. Bristles with Obstacles. Such a phase of market racketeering flourishes in the markets of New York. Attempts are again being made to suppress it, but the present inquiry bristles with obstacles.

Witnesses who supported a case in private suffer from loss of memory in open court; recant their evidence; disappear altogether when wanted. Or, as has happened, they stick hy their guns as far as the witiess-box, only to end in hospital. Prohibition is largely responsible for the present epidemic of racketeering. It began with the blackmail of bootleggers and the corruption of public officials who stood in the way of illicit liquor sales. Then certain enterprising racketeers who had climbed to authority by their exceptional demerits saw the possibilities of the game in other lines. Gangs were organised. Slotmachine proprietors prove one source of easy money, cabaret owners another. There are “rackets” dealing solely with the control of a city’s milk supply, the operation of taxicabs, and the maintenance of news stands.

Attempts are being made to extend the autocracy so that it will dominate shopkeepers and merchants.

Nation-wide Organisation. The racketeers are masters of their own territory, but they have offensive and defensive alliances covering the entire United States. A “squealer” who flees from St. Louis dies mysteriously in Boston. Zuta, the latest notorious gangster to leave this world, who tried to hide in a remote summer resort when he heard that he was under sentence of death in Chicago, was riddled with bullets while soothing his conscience with music from an automatic piano in the crowded lobby of an hotel. The kings of racketeering are as well known as President Hoover. They are smooth, soft-spoken gentlemen with Rolls-Royce habits and a weakness for the best tailors. They emit interviews like every prominent industrialist. They-travel with their bodyguard of expert gunmen, often in private cars; they have been known to give expensive dinner parties, the guests at which included judges and high police officials. The strange tolerance of the great mass of reputable citizens for this state of affairs furnishes one of the most amazing situations existing in any civilised State to-day.

Lest this statement be thought extravagant I give some facts from a survey made recently by a great insurance company.

Amazing Figures. Police reports from cities with a population of more than 25,000,000 show that within ten years crime has 4 increased 150 per oent., while the population has grown only 20 per cent. Last year there were more than 0,300,000 arrests in American cities, of which upwards of 200,000 were for robbery, burglary and similar crimes. Forty-six cities reported a total of 52,751 arrests last year foe j serious crimes—an increase of 21? per cent, in ten years. Arrests for J drunkenness and violation of the anti(Cuj)tinned in next column.l

liquor laws in cities for which comparable reports are obtainable increased IGI per cent, in ten years. What about the police? In one group of cities less' than 15 per cent, of robberies, burglaries and thefts were followed by arrests. In one city there were 1000 burglaries and 30 arrests.

Racketeering and its allied evils will eventually be wiped out. There is no doubt that the vast majority of Americans who are reputable and law-abiding will ultimately rise in their might and cleanse the country, ■as they did after the Civil War, when there was a similar outbreak of organised crime on a much smaller scale. But if racketeering continues to increase as it has done in the last few years very drastic measures will be needed to accomplish the task.