GRAFTERS
A class of criminals who are, in my opinion, the most obnoxious of any
the detective may have to deal with, and of which class only a small
percentage are detected and convicted are the grafters. I will venture
to state that not more than one such criminal in every hundred finds
his way behind prison bars, where all thieves of this class rightly
belong. The general public cannot perceive how prevalent this form of
stealing has become. The reason probably is because the grafter of
today usually moves in the best society and often holds a position
of trust, which facts tend to divert suspicion from him and from his
crooked dealings.
I am sure that a successful career awaits any ambitious young detective
who will devote his time and energy to hunting down grafters. One
or two successful cases will start the detective on the road to
success. The field for detectives for this class of work is unlimited,
remuneration is the best, and better still, the grafter is by far the
easiest of all criminals to catch. It is as easy to catch grafters as
it is to catch fish, the process being simply a matter of baiting a
hook; the grafter, in his greed for money, will do the rest.
In both large and small cities, and in country districts as well,
grafters are daily gathering in ill gotten money in many different
ways. Criminal records of most of our states show that men, while
holding important positions of trust in our state departments, have
been detected and found guilty of various forms of grafting. The same
records, in a good many of our large cities, will show the same. I
believe that one of the best things that could possibly be done by
the governors of our states, by the mayors of our cities, and by our
prosecuting attorneys, would be to employ annually a first-class,
reliable detective to investigate thoroughly into the various interests
of the public which they control to ascertain if grafting exists.
Grafting has usually been found where such investigations have been
made.
The various ways by which men who have held official positions in
state, county and city governments have been known to profit by
grafting would be a long story to relate. Regarding grafting by public
officials, there is one thing in particular that the detective should
always keep in mind, that being that political records show that
thousands of men throughout the country have had themselves elected
to public office, the full term of which netted them in salary often
only half the amount expended by them in having themselves elected to
office. When such persons are elected to public office it very often is
the beginning of grafting by them in some form.
We will grant that some of these men were public spirited citizens,
and while in office may have served the public at their own expense.
Nevertheless, when we know that a man has actually bought his way, and
paid dearly to have himself elected to office, that man will at least
bear watching. I have in mind the case of a certain county official
in a western state, who, some years ago, succeeded in having himself
elected to office, which office, for its entire term of three years,
carried a salary amounting to $2,400.00. This man was known to have
expended close to $5,000.00 to become elected. Within a year after
taking office he was ousted by the people of the county, who demanded
his resignation, it having been found that his campaign for election
was financed by a certain manufacturing company, and that after taking
office he had accepted certain additional sums of money to protect the
interests of the same concern.
Right here we have another kind of grafter. The man just mentioned
was known to have purchased outright with money, at so much per vote,
hundreds of votes that were cast for his election. Voters accepting
such money are of course guilty of a crime worse than grafting. In most
of our states we now have laws which make it a misdemeanor for anyone
to pay or promise to pay, or to give or promise to give anything for
any person's vote.
Grafting of the worst kind has been found to exist in the law making
bodies of some of our states. Many state legislators have been
convicted through having accepted money to vote for or against certain
measures, when by so doing they virtually sold out, for considerations
of money, the people by whom they were elected to faithfully represent.
The methods employed by most grafters, I believe, are too common and
too well known to need mention.
In connection with grafting in county and city governments, it has been
found very often that officials whose duties were to protect society,
and to endeavor to stamp out and to prevent certain violations of the
law, were grafters of the worst type. For considerations of money they
guaranteed protection to persons known to be violating the law. Such
protection has been guaranteed in many of our large cities by police
officials to keepers of houses of ill repute, to keepers of gambling
dens, or blind tigers, etc. The extent to which such grafting is done
can easily be ascertained by the detective if he will cultivate the
acquaintance of the keepers of such places. And now a few words as to
how the detective may set about catching some of these various kinds of
grafters.
One good way for the detective to secure evidence against a grafter is
to first form his acquaintance, then lead him to believe, and make it
plain to him that he also is a grafter, or at least willing to be one.
After such confidence is established, an arrangement should be made
for making any payments of money to the grafter at such a place and in
such a manner that it can be substantially corroborated. So as to make
this point more clear, I will illustrate how I once, as a result of one
day's work, secured confessions from some forty grafters in connection
with vote buying in one county just previous to an election.
It was suspected that a certain candidate for office was spending large
sums of money for votes and I was called in to obtain positive proof
of it. After being supplied with a list of names of persons believed
to be the distributors of the candidate's money, I purposely selected
from the list a man said to be the smartest of the lot. A few hours
later, accompanied by an assistant, I called upon the man at his home.
I advised him that while we were strangers to him we were old friends
of the candidate's and that we had been called upon to assist in his
campaign.
After discussing local conditions with the man, and the prospect of
our friend's election to office, I took from my pocket two hundred
dollars in bills which had previously been marked, and handed them to
the man saying that our friend the candidate sent the money to give
to him for distribution. Needless to state, the man did not refuse to
take the money. The bold and confident manner in which it was handed to
him laid at rest any fears or suspicions he may have had. He no doubt
felt satisfied that we were grafters of his own type, and immediately
began to talk very freely with us. We conversed with him for probably
an hour, during which time he advised us of various sums of money given
him by the candidate for distribution, also gave us the names of a
dozen or more men who were distributing funds for the candidate.
Before the day was over we had this man arrested and searched, when all
of the marked money was found on his person. Realizing that he had been
trapped, he lost no time making a confession, in which he implicated
others, with the result that some forty confessions were secured. I
have found grafters of this kind very prevalent practically all over
the country, and, as a rule, a good detective will experience little
trouble finding some honest, public-spirited citizen willing to defray
the cost of detective hire to run down such persons.
Regarding another kind of grafter, I once was called upon to secure
evidence in a certain small town against a county official who was
believed to be guaranteeing protection to persons selling liquor
in violation of the law, the chief violators being several local
druggists. Shortly after arriving in the town I began to negotiate in a
business like way for the purchase of one of the drug stores. I found
the proprietor of one of the stores willing to sell out provided he
secured his price. After remaining in town about ten days, I took an
option for thirty days on one of the stores, for which option I paid a
hundred dollars. I then left town temporarily, telling the druggist I
was returning to my home town to consult with my partner in business.
Within a week I returned with my partner (another detective) and who
expressed himself as being satisfied with the place I had negotiated
for. We told the druggist we were ready to buy, but before closing
the deal had decided we would like to be assured against interference
by the authorities in case we saw fit to sell liquor in our store.
I suppose because he believed he was getting his own price for his
property and business, the druggist responded quite easily. As we
expected he would do, he volunteered to take us and introduce us to the
very county official we were after, and which he did that evening.
The druggist explained to the county official that we were to purchase
his property and business the next day, and that we were naturally
anxious to know if we could be assured of protection in case we decided
to sell liquor. Everything appearing to be regular to the official, he
told us very bluntly what it would cost us per year to be protected and
requested a first payment of $50.00. I advised him we did not have so
much cash with us, and finally arranged that he call upon us the next
day at 10 a. m. at my room at the local hotel, when we would make the
payment.
Early the next morning at the hotel we secreted two responsible persons
in a closet in my room, then awaited the arrival of our grafter. He
came at the appointed hour and we again discussed the matter of our
protection and paid him $50.00. Immediately afterwards our witnesses
stepped out of the closet, and finding himself caught with four
witnesses against him, the man readily agreed to give us a written and
signed confession. He was told he would have to resign his position
forthwith or be prosecuted. He chose the former, which ended the case.
The dictagraph has played an important part in the detection and
conviction of grafters. When it is suspected that state, county or
city officials are grafting, in order to detect them, we will take for
example one or more city officials whose duty it is to let for their
city, contracts for paving. When a municipality gets ready to pave
three or four streets, or to let contracts for machinery, buildings
or other public improvements, specifications are drawn and the same
advertised. Perhaps twenty contractors will submit bids and one can
imagine the rivalry that may exist among the contractors, especially
since the municipality usually reserves the right to reject any or
all bids and are not bound to let any given contract to the lowest
bidder. Then naturally and very often the question arises as to who
shall be favored. My experience in many cases has been that when the
city officials are open to taking graft, a contract will go to the
contractor who will pay the most for being favored.
Three city officials once were trapped when a detective spent six
months in their city posing as a contractor, and finally when his
company was favored with a street paving contract upon the payment of
$500.00 cash, he arranged to talk over the transaction and later paid
over the money in a room in a hotel in which a dictagraph was secretly
installed, and which made it possible to substantiate the transaction
from start to finish.
Grafting is prevalent in many lines of business, especially where one
man is entrusted with the letting of contracts, or with the purchase of
supplies for a city, corporation, factory or individual. The following
will illustrate just how prevalent petty grafting has become and
which came to my notice through a case I had occasion to investigate
for a certain well-to-do gentleman. This man owned two automobiles
and entrusted to his colored chauffeur the purchase of gasoline
and supplies for the machines. From various dealers this chauffeur
obtained a "rake-off" on every gallon of gasoline used, and on the
purchase of new tires, etc. The more gasoline he used the more money
this chauffeur would make, and the same with tires and other supplies.
During the investigation this chauffeur's purchases of gasoline from
the dealer were compared with the mileage of the automobiles, and when
it was estimated that the owner was paying for two or three gallons of
gasoline per week for a long time that could not possibly have been
used. It was then believed that the chauffeur was selling the surplus
gasoline, but this could not be proven. Finally, when taken to task and
shown the amount of his purchases, he confessed to having poured the
gasoline into the sewer of the garage.
I was once called upon to look into a case where grafting was suspected
in a small town, and where the president of the town council, who was
a prominent physician, was under suspicion. I arrived in town two days
before a certain measure was to be acted upon in council, the measure
being in relation to a heating contract. I called upon the physician
at his office and told him in plain words that I represented one of
the competing firms and that I had been authorized to offer him two
hundred dollars for his vote and influence in favor of my company. He
accepted from me the two hundred dollars cash consisting of marked five
dollar bills, and endeavored to convince me that he was not a grafter
by saying that he had intended favoring my company anyway and was not
accepting the money for changing his decision on the measure in council.
After leaving him I went promptly to the persons who had retained me,
when it was quickly arranged to have a certain person who owed the
physician a small bill go there to pay it with a twenty dollar bill.
This party returned with three of the marked five dollar bills, which
the physician unsuspectingly made the change with. In addition, I had
had the physician prescribe for me for a pretended ailment, and by
which I was enabled to substantiate my call upon him, in spite of the
fact that I went to him alone. It was only desired to have this man
resign from council, which, it may be imagined, he was glad to do when
confronted with the evidence of having accepted a bribe. This entire
case was closed successfully in less than four hours after active work
was started.