MODERN AMERICA.

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

MODERN AMERICA.

A COLOURFUL COUNTRY. SOUTH AFRICAN'S IMPREBSIONS. A South African’s impressions of some of the romantic “high lights” of the gangsters and gunmen of the crime “industry” of Chicago, and the mighty motor industry, were given by Mr L. H. Oates, managing director of a motor firm, in an interview with the Cape Times. Mr Oates had just returned from a six-months’ tour of Europe and the United States. While he was in the United States Mr Oates visited six of, the biggest motor-car factories, and was greatly impressed by their magnitude. “But what was more _ surprising, in view of the conditions obtaining all over the world at present,” he said, “was the number of cars being produced.” There had been a 30 per cent, falling off in sales during the last few months in comparis.on with 1929, but manufacturers regarded this merely as a period of accumulation of future business. . The effect of the financial slump in America appeared to have been felt only in the sales of the higherpriced cars. One factory had been producing 9000 cars a day while he was there. Another factory was producing 126 cars daily of a type that was sold for about five times the price of the other. Hospitable People. “What impressed me most about the Americans themselves,” said Mr Oates, “was the hospitality of the business people and their wonderful enthusiasm for golf. They are golfmad there. They will play you all day on the golf course, and all night on the miniature course, and they record every stroke on paper. “Their golf courses are magnificent, and the clubhouses' are more magnificent. The clubhouse at one place where I spent the week-end, near Chicago, cost 1,000,000 dollars.” The Americans etnertained chiefly in hotels and clubs, he said, because of the servant problem. Mr Oates had some interesting impressions of Chicago. “It is outwardly peaceful and law-abiding, notwithstanding that every morning when you read your paper you will find that two or three murders have been committed the night before,” he said.

“But the gangsters never shoot the public. They are as law-abiding as anyone else as far as the public are concerned.”

Why Lengle Died. Mr Oates was in Chicago at the time of the sensation wl u Lengle, the crime reporter, was shot. The newspapers offered a big reward and declared war on the gangs, but Mr Oates said that when they to make investigations they found that Lengle had been in the graft business himself, and that he had been making about £IOOO a month in this way. Apparently he went too far in some delicate matter involving rival gangs, and his career came to an in the summary fashion in which the gangsters settled all their disputes. Mr Oates described the elaborate organisation of American crime, which was carried on as a recognised industry, with complicated ramifications.

The big controllers divided up the city into territories, in the manner of a manufacturing firm distributing proprietary articles, and sold concessions in gambling rights, bootlegging rights, and vice rights to smaller men. The police were practically powerless.

Mr Oates went as far as Oklahoma, where he saw t|l new oilfields, about three miles outw Over 400 oil wells, all from 5000 to 6000 feet deep, have been sunk within the last 18 months, each one costing 125,000 dollars. The day he was there two of the wells were running wild, spouting out millions of gallons of oil, which were running to waste. It took five days to get one of them under control.