Nowhere and at no time, save in the England of the eighteenth century,
was the underworld so populous or so popular as in the America of
to-day. In life, as in letters, crime and criminals hold there a lofty
place. They are the romance of the street and the tenement-house. In
their adventure and ferocity there is a democratic touch, which endears
them to a free people. Nor are they so far remote from the world of
prosperity and respect in the cities of the United States as elsewhere.
The police is a firm and constant link between criminal and politician.
Wherever the safe-blowers and burglars are, there you will find
stool-pigeons and squealers, {*} ready to sell their comrades for
liberty and dollars. And if the policeman is the intimate of the
grafter, he is the client also of the boss who graciously bestowed his
uniform upon him. At chowder parties and picnics thief, policeman,
and boss meet on the terms of equality imposed upon its members by the
greatest of all philanthropic institutions--Tammany Hall. If you would
get a glimpse into this strange state within a state, you have but to
read the evidence given before the Lexow Committee {**} in 1894. It
would be difficult to match the cynicism and brutality there disclosed.
* A stool-pigeon is a thief in the pay of the police; a
squealer is a grafter who betrays his brother.
** This strange collection of documents, a whole literature
in itself, bears the prosaic title, "Investigations of the
Police Department of the City of New York."
In every line of this amazing testimony you may detect a contempt of
human life and justice, an indifference to suffering, an eager lust
after unearned dollars, which are without parallel. The persons who play
their part in this austere, begrimed tragi-comedy, come for the most
part from oversea, and have but a halting knowledge of the language
spoken by judges and senators. Yet their very ignorance stamps their
speech with authenticity, and enhances its effect. The quick dialogue is
packed with life and slang. Never were seen men and women so strange as
flit across this stage. Crook and guy, steerer and turner, keepers of
gambling-hells and shy saloons, dealers in green-goods, {*} come forward
with their eager stories of what seems to them oppression and wrong.
* Forged dollar-notes.
With the simplicity which knows no better they deplore their
ill-rewarded "industry," and describe their fraudulent practices as
though they were a proper means of earning bread and butter. They have
as little shame as repentance. Their only regrets are that they have
been ruined by the police or forced to spend a few barren years in the
State prison. And about them hover always detective and police-captain,
ill-omened birds of prey, who feed upon the underworld. There is nothing
more remarkable in this drama of theft and hunger than the perfect
understanding which unites the criminal lamb and the wolfish upholder of
the law. The grafter looks to his opponent for protection, and looks not
in vain, so long as he has money in his pocket. The detective shepherds
the law-breakers, whom he is appointed to arrest; he lives with them; he
shares their confidences and their gains; he encourages their enterprise
that he may earn a comfortable dividend; and he gives them up to justice
when they are no longer worth defending. No dramatist that ever lived
could do justice to this astounding situation, and it is the highest
tribute to human ingenuity that few of the interlocutors fall below
their opportunity.
And it may be admitted that New York gave, and gives, an easy chance to
policemen bent upon oppression. What can the poor, ignorant foreigners,
who throng the east side of the city, do against their brutal and
omnipotent guardians? "An impressive spectacle was presented to us one
day," reports the Committee, "in the presence of about 100 patrolmen
in uniform, who during the period of three preceding years had been
convicted by the police commissioners of unprovoked and unwarranted
assault on citizens." Still more impressive than "this exhibit of
convicted clubbers" was "a stream of victims of police brutality who
testified before the Committee. The eye of one man, punched out by a
patrolman's club, hung on his cheek. Others were brought before the
Committee, fresh from their punishment, covered with blood and bruises,
and in some cases battered out of recognition." The whole city seemed
the prey of a panic terror. One day "a man rushed into the session,
fresh from an assault made upon him by a notorious politician and two
policemen, and with fear depicted upon his countenance threw himself
upon the mercy of the Committee and asked its protection, insisting
that he knew of no court and of no place where he could in safety go and
obtain protection from his persecutors." From all which it is plain that
too high a price may be paid for the philanthropy of Tammany Hall, and
that a self-governing democracy cannot always keep an efficient watch
upon its guardians.
What is it in the life and atmosphere of America which thus encourages
crime, or rather elevates crime to a level of excellence unknown
elsewhere? In the first place, the citizens of New York are the
disciples of Hobbes. To them life is a state of war. The ceaseless
competition for money is a direct incentive to the combat. Nature seems
to have armed every man's hand against his fellow. And then the American
is always happiest when he believes himself supreme in his own walk.
The man who inhabits the greatest country on earth likes to think of his
talent as commensurate with his country's. If he be a thief, he must be
the most skilful of his kind; if he be a blackmailing policeman, he must
be a perfect adept at the game. In brief, restlessness and the desire
of superiority have produced a strange result, and there is little
doubt that the vulgar American is insensitive to moral shocks. This
insensitiveness is easily communicated to the curious visitor. A
traveller of keen observation and quick intelligence, who has recently
spent "a year amongst Americans," accepts the cynicism of the native
without a murmur. After yielding to that spirit of enthusiastic hope
which is breathed by the Statue of Liberty, he thus discusses the
newly-arrived alien:
Even the stars in their courses [thus he writes] fight for America, if
not always for the immigrant when he lands. The politicians would
fain prevent his assimilation in order that his vote might be easily
manipulated by them; but first of all he must have a vote to be handled,
and to this end the politicians provide him with naturalisation papers,
fraudulent it may be--the State Superintendent of Elections in New York
estimates that 100,000 fraudulent naturalisation papers were issued in
New York State alone in 1903,--and thus in the very beginning of his
life in America the immigrant feels himself identified with, and takes
delight and pride in, the American name and nature; and lo! already the
alien is bound to the "native" by the tie of a common sentiment, the
[Greek word] of the Greeks, which is one of the most powerful factors of
nationality.
Poor [Greek word]! many follies have been spoken in your name! But never
before were you identified with fraudulent naturalisation! Never before
were you mistaken for the trick of a manipulating politician!
Such being the tie of a common sentiment, it is not surprising that
the Americans are universally accustomed to graft and boodle. With
characteristic frankness they have always professed a keen interest
in those who live by their wits. It is not for nothing that Allan
Pinkerton, the eminent detective, called affectionately "the old man,"
is a national hero. His perfections are already celebrated in a prose
epic, and he is better known to west as to east than the President
himself. And this interest, this sense of heroism, are expressed in
a vast and entertaining literature. Nowhere has this literature of
scoundrelism, adorned by Defoe and beloved by Borrow, flourished as
it has flourished in America. Between the dime novel and the stern
documents of the Lexow Committee there is room for history and fiction
of every kind. The crooked ones of the earth have vied with the
detectives in the proper relation of their experiences. On the one
hand you find the great Pinker-ton publishing to the world a breathless
selection from his own archives; on the other, so practised a novelist
as Mr Julian Hawthorne embellishing the narrative of Inspector Byrnes;
and it is evident that both of them satisfy a general curiosity. In
these records of varying merit and common interest the attentive reader
may note the changes which have taken place in the method and
practice of thieving. There is no man so ready to adapt himself to new
circumstances as the scoundrel, and the ingenuity of the American rogue
has never been questioned. In the old days of the backwoods and romance
Jesse James rode forth on a high-mettled steed to hold up cars, coaches,
and banks; and James Murel, the horse-thief, celebrated by Mark Twain,
whose favourite disguise was that of an itinerant preacher, cherished
no less a project than an insurrection of negroes and the capture of New
Orleans. The robber of to-day is a stern realist. He knows nothing of
romance. A ride under the stars and a swift succession of revolver-shots
have no fascination for him. He likes to work in secret upon safe or
burglar-box. He has moved with the times, and has at his hand all the
resources of modern science. If we do not know all that is to be known
of him and his ambitions it is our own fault, since the most expert
of his class, Langdon W. Moore, has given us in 'His Own Story of his
Eventful Life' (Boston, 1893) a complete revelation of a crook's career.
It is an irony of life that such a book as this should come out
of Boston, and yet it is so quick in movement, of so breathless an
excitement, that it may outlive many specimens of Bostonian lore and
culture. It is but one example out of many, chosen because in style as
in substance it outstrips all competitors.
Without knowing it, Langdon W. Moore is a disciple of Defoe. He has
achieved by accident that which the author of 'Moll Flanders' achieved
by art. There is a direct simplicity in his narrative which entitles
him to a place among the masters. He describes hair-breadth escapes and
deadly perils with the confident air of one who is always exposed to
them. He gives the impression of the hunted and the hunter more vividly
than any writer of modern times. When he is opening a safe, you hear, in
spite of yourself, the stealthy step upon the stair. If he watches for
a pal at the street end, you share his anxiety lest that pal should
be intercepted by the watchful detective. And he produces his effects
without parade or ornament. He tells his story with a studied plainness,
and by adding detail to detail keeps your interest ever awake. Like many
other great men, he takes his skill and enterprise for granted. He does
not write of his exploits as though he were always amazed at his own
proficiency. Of course he has a certain pride in his skill. He cannot
describe his perfect mastery over all the locks that ever were made
without a modest thrill. He does not disguise his satisfaction at
Inspector Byrnes' opinion that "he had so deeply studied combination
locks as to be able to open them from the sound ejected from the
spindle." For the rest, he recognises that he is merely a workman, like
another, earning his living, and that nothing can be accomplished save
by ceaseless industry and untiring toil. Like many another hero, Langdon
W. Moore was born in New England, and was brought up at Newburyport,
a quiet seaport town. The only sign of greatness to be detected in
his early life was an assault upon a schoolmaster, and he made ample
atonement for this by years of hard work upon a farm. He was for a while
a typical hayseed, an expert reaper, ready to match himself against all
comers. He reached his zenith when he was offered fifty dollars in gold
for six weeks' toil, and he records with a justified pleasure that
"no man had ever been paid such high wages as that." But his energetic
spirit soon wearied of retirement, and he found his way to New York,
not to be fleeced, like the hayseed of the daily press, but to fleece
others. The gambling hells knew him; he became an adept at poker and
faro; and he soon learned how to correct or to compel fortune. His first
experiment was made upon one Charley White, who dealt faro bank every
Saturday night; and it is thus that Moore describes the effect of an
ingenious discovery:
He kept his box and cards in a closet adjoining his room. One night
during his absence I fitted a key to his closet, took out his cards, and
sand-papered the face of eight cards in each deck. I then removed the
top of his faro-box, bulged out the centre of the front plate at the
mouth, and filed the plate on the inside at both corners to a bevel. I
then replaced the top, put in a deck of cards, and made a deal. I found
the cards not sanded would follow up and fill the mouth of the box after
each turn was made; and if the mouth remained dark and the edge of the
top card could not be seen, one of the sand-papered cards was next, and
a loser. This would give me several "dead" turns in each deal.
By this means the great man, still despised as a Boston bean-eater, was
able to bring his adversary to ruin. The adversary at last discovered
the artifice, and "for the next five years," to quote Moore's own words,
"we met as strangers."
It will be seen that from his earliest days Moore possessed a scientific
ingenuity, which the hard experience of life rapidly improved. And
it was not long before a definite direction was given to his talent.
Arrested in 1856, as he thought unjustly, he determined "to do no more
work until obliged to do it for the State." He therefore turned his
skill of hand to account, and went into the "green goods business." His
success in this venture was so great that he made the best dollar bills
ever put upon the market, and he boasts legitimately that in the game
he "never lost a man." Presently he discovered that there was a quicker
profit in stolen bonds. "From my first venture in this bond-smashing
business," to quote his own simple words, "in 1862 up to 1870, I made
more money than in any branch of industry I was ever engaged in."
"Branch of industry" is admirable, and proves that Moore had a proper
appreciation of his craft. But bond-smashing compelled a perfect
knowledge of locks and bolts, and in this knowledge, as has been said,
Moore was supreme. At the end of his career, when he had hung his arms
upon the wall, and retired to spend a green old age at Boston, it was
to his treatment of Yale and Lillie locks that he looked back with the
greatest pleasure. But no exploit flattered his vanity more easily than
the carrying off from the Bank at Concord--the Concord of Emerson and
Hawthorne--of some three hundred thousand dollars. That he purchased
his freedom by an ample restitution mattered nothing to the artist. His
purpose was achieved, his victory won, and if his victims came by their
own again, he at least had the satisfaction which comes of a successful
engagement.
Of this adventure he writes with more enthusiasm than he is wont to
show. He wishes his readers to understand that it was not a sudden
descent, but the culmination of five months' steady work. He had watched
the bank until he knew the habits of its manager and the quality of its
locks. He "was satisfied from all he saw that by hard persistent work
the bank could be cleaned out completely." It was on a July day in 1867
that the scheme first took shape in Moore's mind. He had stopped at
noon at the hotel at Concord for food, and saw the cashier of the bank
returning from his dinner.
The bank had been closed during his absence [thus he tells his simple
story], and he now unlocked the street door and left the key in the
lock. I followed him upstairs and saw him unlock the outer and inner
doors of the vault, and also the door of the burglar-box. I presented a
hundred-dollar note and asked to have it changed. Being accommodated, I
left the place, observing as I went out that the lock on the street
door was a heavy one of the familiar tumbler variety, and that it had a
wooden back.
Thus the train was laid, and in three months came the explosion.
Impressions were taken of locks, keys were provided, a waggon and team
were held in readiness, and one day as the cashier left the bank to get
his dinner, Langdon W. Moore, with a meal-bag concealed under his vest,
quietly opened the front door and entered the bank. One check he knew.
As he went in a girl of twelve tried to follow him--a near relative
of the cashier. The exercise of a little tact satisfied her that the
directors were in session, and she ran off to her playmates under the
big elm at the opposite corner of the street. Moore lost no time in
locking the door behind him, in opening all the locks, which yielded to
his cunning and foresight, and in packing the meal-bag full of bonds,
bank-notes, and plate. He accomplished the deed without haste, and by
the time that the cashier had finished his dinner Moore had disappeared
with his bag, and his waggon, and his friends, and left no trace behind.
Another masterpiece, in Moore's opinion, was what he magniloquently
calls the great robbery of an express car. Here, too, he proved the
fineness of his craft. He left nothing to chance, and he foresaw, with
the coolness of a practised hand, every step which his adversaries would
take. His first care was to obtain the assistance of the messenger who
travelled on the car which he proposed to rob, and the zeal and energy
wherewith he coached his accomplices ensured success. Again and again he
rehearsed every scene in the comedy. Before his eyes the messenger was
attacked by two masked ruffians, of whom one caught him by the throat,
while the other put a pistol to his head, saying, "If you open your
mouth I will blow a hole through your head large enough for a pigeon to
fly through." Then the messenger was gagged and bound, a piece of soap
was put into his mouth, that he might appear in the last extremity, and
presently he was set to learn by heart the tale that he should tell his
employers. By long practice each actor became perfect in his part. The
car was raided, one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars was the
modest spoil, and Pinkerton and his men were gallantly defied. A hasty
trip to Canada still further perplexed the pursuers, and if we may
believe Moore, he not only baffled the great detective, but persuaded
the Express Company to dispute his claim. Moore, in fact, took a
sportsman's as well as an artist's pleasure in the game. After the
discomfiture of his enemies, he loved nothing better than a neat job. He
professes a frank delight in explaining how once upon a time he opened
the Honourable Benjamin Wood's safe, and did not soil his carpet. And
there was good reason for his scruple. No sooner had he flashed his dark
lantern on the office than he observed that the floor was newly covered,
and that fresh paint and paper shone upon the walls. Now he had no
objection to easing the Honourable Benjamin of fifty thousand dollars.
Being a gentleman, he would scorn to spoil a new Brussels carpet.
Accordingly he took some papers from Mr Wood's file and spread them
carefully on the floor. The rest of the dramatic recital shall be given
in his own words:
When this was done, we drilled two five-eighth-inch holes through the
fire-proof door into the bolt case, jacked the plate from the frame,...
and opened the door. I then put in a wooden wedge at the top to keep
the plate from springing back, took down the jack, and shook out all the
loose filing upon the papers. This I gathered carefully up, and put the
lime, plaster, and papers in the coal-hod, placed some more clean papers
under the door, and made everything ready to leave the building as soon
as the boodle was transferred safe to our pockets. After looking through
the books and papers, the money was taken out and counted. It amounted
to but a single one-dollar note.
Was ever an artist so bitterly deceived? Langdon W. Moore rose to the
occasion. He was no pilferer, and scorned to carry off so mean a
booty. In the words of the police-captain, he would not add larceny to
burglary. But he paid the penalty of greatness. His work was instantly
recognised. "I know the man," said Captain Jordan, "for there is but one
in the world who would take all that trouble to save your carpet while
breaking open your safe."
It reminds you of the story told by Pliny of Apelles the painter, who
once upon a time called upon Protogenes, another master of his craft,
when Protogenes was not within. Whereupon Apelles, seeing a picture
before him, took a pencil and drew in colour upon the picture a passing
fine and small line. Then said he to the old woman in the house, "Tell
thy master that he who made this line inquired for him." And when
Protogenes returned, and had looked upon the line, he knew who had been
there, and said withal, "Surely Apelles has come to town, for it is
impossible that any but he should make in colour so fine workmanship."
Thus genius is betrayed by its own perfection, and he who refused to
soil the carpet could not but be recognised by his skill.
And Langdon W. Moore was forced to pay another and a more grievous
penalty for his renown. As the fame of his prowess spread abroad, he
fell a prey to the greed of detectives. Do what he would, he could never
rid himself of the attentions of the police. Henceforth it was almost
impossible for him to work in safety, and whatever booty he obtained
he must needs share with his unwelcome companions. He was like a fly
condemned to spend his life in the irk-some society of the spider. When
he had not much to give, his poverty was rewarded by years in prison;
and then, as he says himself, he "was welcomed back into the old
criminal life by crooked police officials." These officials had no
desire to help him. "I was not asked by them"--again it is Moore who
speaks--"if I was in want of anything, but was told that if I wanted to
make some money they could put me on to a good bank job where I
could make a million." And, if we may believe the historians, Moore's
experience is not singular. The truth is, the thief-taker still
flourishes in America. Jonathan Wild, his occupation gone in England,
has crossed the ocean, and plies his trade with greater skill and
treachery than ever. He thinks it better to live on the criminal than to
catch him. And thus he becomes a terror not to the evildoer but to the
law-abiding citizen. It is his business to encourage crime, not to
stamp it out. If there were no thieves, where would the stool-pigeon and
detective find their profits? "W'y," said a pickpocket {*} in New York,
"them coppers up there in the Tenderloin couldn't have any diamond rings
if we didn't help to pay for 'em. No, they couldn't. They'd sit down in
the street and actually cry--an' they're big men some of 'em--if we
guns was run off the earth." In other words, the lesson of the American
Underworld is that the policeman may be a far greater danger to the
community than the criminal. Jonathan Wild will always do more harm than
Jack Sheppard. The skill and daring of the cracksman makes him a marked
man. But _quis custodes custodiet?_
* See 'The World of Graft,' by J. Flint (1901), p. 154.