picked up at 2, they come back to Chinatown at 5 or 6 in the morning,
by which time the waiters, chefs and bartenders, all Chinese, are
locking up for the night and ready for a bit of shacking up themselves.
Many of the prostitutes live with Chinese men from the restaurants and
the gambling joints. These are useful to the Chinese colony, which
entertains influential white people lavishly. Many members of Congress,
high government officials and influential lobbyists are feted at
private parties, where they are served exotic twenty-course meals of
raw octopus and lambs’ eyes, washed down by shark’s fin soup. Police
Chief Barrett, always accompanied by his aide-de-camp, a lieutenant, is
frequently entertained in these private rooms.
Amiable blondes are supplied by the hosts if wanted, and rooms are
available down the block, at the Eastern House, a cheap Chinese and
white hotel, where federal agents frequently pick up dope-peddlers.
Selling narcotics is another large Chinese industry. Unlike other
cities, it is not confined to selling to Chinese. In all other Eastern
cities, opium, the favorite Chinese dream-smoke, is peddled by members
of the On Leong Tong, who have the cream of everything, won through
violence and chicanery.
In other cities, Hip Singers must content themselves with the sale
of white stuff--heroin, morphine and cocaine--which is seldom used
by Chinese. In Washington, Chinese are among the main retail dope
purveyors for the white trade as well as their own people. There are
few Puerto Rican and Italian drug passers available. So both tongs sell
everything. Junkies cruise Chinatown at all hours of the day and night
in search of dope, and can make a buy without any trouble. If anyone
stands on a corner and looks sad for more than five minutes, he will be
approached by a peddler.
The net result is that, with narcotics as with girls, the Chinese find
a potent weapon with which to further the interests of their fellow
Orientals all over the country. More than one high government official
is on dope, which he procures from Chinese dealers, who in turn have
him at their mercy because they control the source and because they
have the power of blackmail.
The Chinese import some, obtain the rest from the central Mafia sources
in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, or directly from abroad, as
will be described later. They frequently cooperate with the Mafia in
smuggling narcotics and other contraband. It is a matter of record
that many Chinese secret societies have worked with their ancient
Sicilian counterpart, the Mafia, over the centuries. Both Cantonese
and Sicilians are widely dispersed over the world, but each faction
is bound together by a common language and secret societies. Chinese
societies are remarkable transmission belts. And among Chinese are many
natural-born gangsters--sly rather than bold in white men’s countries.
Dope can be hidden in rice, vegetables and even wet-wash. The Chinese
societies also provide the Mafia with facilities for transporting
contraband money from country to country or from town to town.
There’s hardly a location in Chinatown without some form of gambling
going on, quite often open to the street. Almost every restaurant has
a game in the rear. Many stores are blinds for the huge wagering that
goes on behind. If you came in and asked to buy some article you saw
in the window, you’d be laughed at; they are usually dummy props. Huge
sums are won and lost in these games, and bankrolls of a hundred or
two hundred thousand dollars on the table are not unknown. This is
always syndicate money. Sometimes as many as 500 or 1,000 partners all
over the country are in the play. These games go on 24 hours a day,
without pause. Each syndicate’s players are chosen for their ability as
gamblers. They play in teams with others who relieve them.
We saw open gambling in the Fong Wah Co., in Eng Hon, in the On Leong
building, and at numbers 601, 603, 606, 607, 608 H Street, in Chinatown.
The police know all about this gambling, but take no action unless
white men put in a beef. They explain you can’t make a pinch stick on
Chinese: the games they play are not understandable to whites, and it
is almost impossible to make an identification of an Oriental, or to
get one to testify, for or against.
When the Chinese hook a fat white sucker, the game moves every hour to
a different location.
Sixth Street, at H, is the dividing line between Hip Sing and On Leong
territory, with the Hip Sings below 6th, the less desirable part of
town. The division of businesses gives all restaurants to On Leongs
and the laundries to Hip Sings, therefore all chop suey parlors in
Chinatown are above 6th Street.
Kwon Seto is the local On Leong boss and one of the most powerful men
in Washington. George Moy, secretary of the On Leongs, is the “mayor”
of Chinatown. A man named Yee is the real boss. Moy owns the Joy Inn,
where an investigator for a crime committee was steered by a District
official, then “mickeyed.”
9. THE OVERFLOW
Of every 100 residents of the metropolitan district, 45 live in the
suburbs--over the line in Maryland and across the Potomac in Virginia.
The take from these sections, in legitimate taxes and the proceeds of
vice and crime, is so attractive that the city fathers of Washington
have their greedy eyes on annexing this adjoining land onto the
voteless District.
Almost everywhere else, unincorporated territory across city lines is
a world apart. These county sections usually look different, smell
different and are different from the city. They are bad or good,
where people go to get away from the law, or go to get away from the
lawlessness of the big city.
The border of D.C. is arbitrary. As the population of the capital grew,
it spread. For all practical purposes, nearby Maryland and Virginia are
as much a part of the city as any part of the city itself. Most of the
residents of the suburbs work in the capital.
The entire area is really one municipality, though those living in
Virginia and Maryland can vote.
There are no caste or social lines between the District and the
suburbs. Society people may live in Washington, Virginia or Maryland.
Residences of high government officials are spread over the three. The
big wheels of the underworld are likewise scattered. The same overlords
control the rackets in the entire metropolitan district.
The state lines provide gangsters with yet another safeguard.
Extradition warrants are required to move them from one area to
another. For some specific crimes, the authorities are hampered by the
fact that no extradition is authorized. Smart lawyers take advantage of
these false barriers. For instance, each day’s collection of lottery
money in the District is moved into Maryland. Conversely, much of
Maryland’s bookmaking take is deposited in District banks. That is all
done on legal advice.
Technically, police officers in hot pursuit may cross state lines
to make arrests, even for traffic violations. But few crimes are
committed in the presence of a cop, and almost never any involving the
upper echelons of crime. The satellite regions are remarkably free
of Negroes, who prefer the city which they have all but taken over.
That’s why the suburbs grew in size to such extent that Silver Spring,
Maryland, adjacent to the District, of which outsiders seldom hear or
read, is now the second largest city in the state.
The suburbs run the scale from swank sections where only those of
great wealth reside to dingy squatters’ rows where moonshining, murder
and mayhem are daily dillies. Most of the ritzier suburbs are on the
Virginia side. Chain Bridge Way, Warrenton and Middleburg are peopled
by the horsey set, where there are great estates lived in by possessors
of ancient, honorable family names, as well as by the newly-made
aristocrats of the New Deal, union officers, left-wing lawyers,
five-percenters and State Department aides. Chevy Chase, partly in
the District, but mostly in Maryland, is tony, too. So is Bethesda,
Maryland.
But the great mass of suburbanites in both states are middle-class
government employes who commute to and from work, play bridge, go to
the movies and propagate.
As will be seen here, you can find almost anything in the way of crime
or vice in Washington, but what you miss can usually be met in some
of the Maryland suburbs when the heat isn’t on, especially in Prince
Georges County, which, for its size, probably has more slot-machines,
strip-teasers, resident hoodlums and general deviltry than any other
place in the world--subject to a “clean-up” in progress at this writing.
_A. Maryland_
This is the Free State, where anything goes.
Chicago has Cicero, Washington has Prince Georges County.
The same cause which gives Washington the unenviable lead as the Number
1 law-breaker among cities--public apathy--is what usually makes Prince
Georges County unique among county areas of the country. Washington
does not have the vote, the residents of Prince Georges do have it.
And they exercise it by usually voting Democratic and corrupt. Last
November they kicked over the traces for the first time since 1864.
But the Republican county commission won’t get far, even if it tries.
Without a dream of winning, the GOP nominated well-meaning nonentities
without a policy, organization or knowledge of the local problems.
Their victory was as surprising to themselves as to these reporters.
The facts for this chapter were gathered shortly before the November
election. The new county government was sworn in on December 5.
We returned to Prince Georges in early February for a recheck and
found little changed. The new sheriff, Carlton Beall, made ten raids
since New Year’s Eve. But the strip-joints still ran, though not so
blatantly. Instead of featuring the nudies in their ads, they gave them
second billing and headlined the male M.C. instead. But the babes were
just as bare.
The gambling was under wraps, too, but it still flourished. The big
gamblers took the precaution of moving their books and their bank
accounts back to the District, whence they had fled a decade ago.
The crime syndicate’s technique was to keep moving across county lines
from Anne Arundel to Howard to Prince Georges in the area near Laurel,
where the three join.
The militant Republicans fired the Chief of Police and appealed
to Senator Kefauver for aid. At this writing, the Senate Crime
Investigating Committee tossed the hot potato right back into Maryland.
One of Kefauver’s four colleagues on the Committee is Senator Herbert
O’Conor, Maryland Democrat, elected with the aid of the corrupt
Democratic machine so soundly trounced last November.
The second act of the new Republican commission was to hire another
Democrat to succeed the ousted Democratic Police Chief.
The Prince Georges border is a 15-minute drive from the heart of
Washington. Depending on the road you take out of town, you soon reach
Bladensburg or Colmar Manor. The latter is Rum Row, with several blocks
of dirty drinking-joints where wind-broken broads solicit drinks, roll
drunks and whore, often as a pastime when no dough is available.
If you go to Colmar Manor to spend money, Silver Spring in adjoining
Montgomery County is the place where you can get money. This is no
gag. The entire main street of Silver Spring and nearby Mount Rainier
in Prince Georges is lined on both sides from the District border
for more than a quarter of a mile with personal loan agencies. This
is because D. C. law makes it almost impossible for small loan firms,
which lend you money on your own signature or that of co-signers,
to operate. It so limits the interest rate as to make the business
unprofitable, fixing it at one percent a month. On the other hand, both
Maryland and Virginia are much more liberal with the loan companies.
The former allows three percent monthly and the latter two-and-a-half.
The Washington wage-earner, working for the government or privately
employed, does his borrowing across the borderline. If he should
default, the loans are collectable in the District, though its courts
are increasingly looking into the conditions under which the loan was
originally granted and refusing to issue judgments where they believe
the interest is usurious.
Most Washingtonians know Prince Georges County as a place to go to have
fun. This is not because Maryland’s laws, or even their enforcement,
are more liberal than the District’s. With few exceptions, they are not.
The legal liquor closing on weekdays is 2 A.M. in both. No hard liquor
can be sold at all on Sundays. They cheat in Prince Georges.
Prince Georges County is lined with dumps that specialize in
strip-teasers. There are also many fag-joints. Peeling isn’t against
the law in Washington, either. It goes on in the 9th Street burlesque
houses when they operate, and at Kavakos’, near the navy yard. But
Washingtonians prefer not to patronize the nuders near home. Their
feeling of delicacy is overcome when they drive five miles.
Washington’s huge homosexual colony overflows up to the Baltimore
Highway and into a place called the Conga. Mike Young’s occasionally
specializes in fairy shows, too.
Prince Georges is a long strip predominantly devoted to gaiety,
night life, gambling and whoring. At this writing, one of its most
famous places is in a barnlike structure called the Crossroads. It
has strippers and corny shows. Its huge bar is loaded for a pick-up.
In case you do, but are not prepared, “sanitary rubber goods” are
dispensed in slot-machines in the men’s rooms. The night we were there,
we saw three fancy one-armed bandits whirring and swallowing. These
were manufactured by Bell, which means their take goes direct to Frank
Costello, instead of reaching him indirectly through other subsidiary
companies, which sell machines to local syndicates. The Crossroads is a
hangout for hoodlums. We recognized some well-known police characters
there.
One of its owners is local gambling overlord Snags Lewis, about whom
more later. Last year there was a shooting in the room, but Prince
Georges County Patrolman Burgess made no report because his father had
a piece of the place. Burgess is now off the force.
The Dixie Pig is a few yards down the road from the Crossroads. This
barbecue bazaar is a hangout for prostitutes and gamblers. It is owned
by Earl Sheriff, who, strangely enough, was the sheriff of Prince
Georges before he went to Lewisburg penitentiary on an income tax
charge, after pleading nolo contendere to protect the top shots.
Sheriff, now out on parole, is still electioneering, fixing and
collecting campaign funds for the local Democratic machine. He worked
hard for defeated Senator Tydings.
While Sheriff was having his troubles, Ralph Brown, late chief of
the Prince Georges County Police, settled with the government out of
court. The Democratic leaders of Prince Georges who were unaware of the
vice there, or blind, are Congressmen Lansdale G. Sasscer, T. Howard
Duckett, and T. Hampton Magruder. The latter two are attorneys.
Prince Georges County has a police force of 41 men, plus its village
and town cops. But the county never asks for State Troopers. That is
not surprising, because while we were gathering information for this
book the Prince Georges grand jury said there was no gambling in the
county. We saw a lot of it with our own eyes. Maybe state cops could
stumble on some of it. Maybe.
Clean-up or no, there usually are more floating crap-games, illegal
bookies and after-hour spots in Prince Georges than there are in Reno,
where all such things are legal. The Republicans may temporarily drive
them under cover--or back to the District--but those boys never stop.
The local Democratic machine was so powerful that, in 1947, the United
States Department of Justice had to intervene directly with Maryland’s
then Governor Lane to close down some joints. State troopers quickly
shut all gambling houses--save one run by Mike Meyers, who was too
cantankerous even for them. They finally drove him out by stationing
police-cars around his joint every night, and taking the names of
customers. After the heat was off, however, the county reopened wide.
The Prince Georges underworld was ruled until his death last year by
Jimmy La Fontaine, who is known in gangland circles to have been a
20-percent partner with Frank Costello, the Mafia boss in New York, who
handled the other 80 percent of the Prince Georges take. La Fontaine
was a big financial backer of the local Democratic machine, though his
own plush gambling casino across the street from the District line
is now closed, pending probate of his multi-million-dollar estate by
Attorney Charlie Ford, who gets the cream of all gambling, whoring and
other organized criminal cases in the District of Columbia, Maryland
and Virginia.
Now the underworld is run by lieutenants of those who operate as vice
overlords in Washington. Among them are Monk Seal, the bookmaker, who
also has a piece of the Crossroads, and the aforementioned Mike Meyers,
who handles the dice end. Snags Lewis is the local representative of
the nationwide horse wire service, owned by the heirs of the late Al
Capone, and is Frank Costello’s direct representative.
Policy-slip collections in the District are paid off to Pete Gianaris
at night at the close of business. Gianaris is an interesting character
who ran a $50,000 party in the ballroom of the Statler Hotel to
celebrate the christening of his young son. This was cheap, considering
that he imported such expensive Broadway stars as Buddy Lester to
entertain the cream of local society. He is a beloved, big-hearted
citizen.
The Costello interests were operating hundreds of slot-machines in
Prince Georges. Some years ago, they were legalized by local option,
but they remained contrary to state law, which was not enforced. Some
locals, pushed out of the picture by Costello’s strongarm boys, started
a tax-payers’ suit in the state courts and the Prince Georges local
option law was thrown out. But some of the officials apparently haven’t
heard of the decision yet.
That is not so surprising, since the sheriff, who seldom finds
time to enforce the state laws, is busy applying the lash and
cat-o’-nine-tails. Archaic Maryland law provides for whipping some
classes of prisoners, the sheriff acting in person.
Among other joints in the county is one called the Hilltop, in
Hillside. It was formerly a barbecue pit, now is a snake pit--a noisy
madhouse catering to school and college kids who want to see what the
well-undressed peeler isn’t wearing. The Quonset Inn, also in Prince
Georges, is run by the Chinese syndicate of the District, which has
established perfect harmony with the white bosses. You can see naked
women at the Senate Inn, Waldrop’s, and occasionally at La Conga.
Meanwhile, the temporary exodus of Prince Georges gamblers has
stepped up wagering activities in other nearby Maryland counties.
Montgomery, mainly residential, with swank Chevy Chase and hard-working
middle-class Silver Spring, woke up to find its Elks’ Club the victim
of a police raid.
Then Sam Morgan, also of Silver Spring, described as one of the most
important gamblers in the area, was locked up by State Troopers
when they swooped down on “lay-off” establishments near Laurel Park
and Ellicott City. These were nerve-centers for the transmission of
contraband money in and out of the District. Morgan drew a suspended
sentence. No one ever goes to jail.
The Baltimore Highway houses many tourist cabins, where pleasure-bound
Washingtonians can drive and hire a room without baggage for $3, if not
using it all night. A big turnover is the gravy for these guesthouses.
A few cabin resorts are reserved for Negroes only.
The Negro population of this part of Maryland is comparatively small,
most of its members doing menial or service labor for the white folk.
However, the well-heeled boys of Washington’s colored set like to drive
up the road a bit with their dusky dames in their Cadillacs.
The nearest amusement park to the city of Washington is Glen Echo,
about seven miles away, in Maryland. This is the typical smalltown
Coney Island, with swimming-pools, crazy rides, dancehalls, hot dogs
and the inevitable pick-ups. Many professionals work the park in the
summer, but they are outnumbered by the forlorn femmes from Washington
who come there in pairs or even larger parties, looking and hoping.
_B. Virginia_
The Virginia suburbs present a more respectable exterior, though under
the surface there’s plenty going on. The policy of the Old Dominion is
policy.
Virginia’s laws do not permit the sale of hard liquor for on-premises
consumption. Only beer and wine may be drunk that way. Hard stuff
must be bought at liquor stores and taken out. This isn’t conducive to
anything like gay night life. Virginians go into the District or up to
Maryland if they want hi-jinks. Otherwise, most of their fun-making
takes place at house parties. There are a few dives. But the after-hour
“bottle-clubs” which plague Washington are to be found in Virginia too.
One of these is the Commonwealth at South Pitt and Wolfe, in Alexandria.
The average resident of Virginia’s suburbs is financially a step or two
above his Maryland neighbors. There are more fine homes and estates on
this side of the river. The Negro problem is not so incendiary, because
this is Virginia, where Jim Crow is king by statute, and colored people
live in restricted areas and behave, or else. This is one of the
reasons why the Negroes floated into the District, where they changed
places with the whites, who overflowed back into Virginia. Remarkable
was Prince Georges 64-percent population increase in the decade; but
Arlington County, Virginia, had 125 percent.
The absence of night life in the nearby Virginia suburbs has been
noted. This minimizes prostitution. Gambling is an important industry,
as it is all over the nation.
Virginia authorities are disturbed by an influx of bookmakers and
policy-sellers, white and black, from the District. Recently a Negro
woman was arrested in Arlington with $3,000 in a paper bag, which was
picked up that day in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters--for numbers
bets.
Sam Lano, who used to operate the Syndicate slot-machines in Prince
Georges, is president of the Arlington Music Corporation, which flooded
the county with pinball machines, many being used as gambling devices
by local merchants. Lano came here from New York two years ago. Over
a year ago he was convicted in Marlborough Circuit Court for having
threatened a Prince Georges tavern-owner with prosecution on a bad
check if he didn’t keep Lano’s machines in his place. He was sentenced
to a year and his conviction was upheld by the Maryland Court of
Appeals. So far, however, Lano hasn’t served one day in the cooler, and
no effort was made to detain him when he transferred his operations
to Virginia. The police of Bangor, Me., are looking for him for the
removal and concealment of mortgaged property.
Considerable moonshine liquor is available in the Virginia suburbs. It
comes from stills operated in the mountains in the western part of the
state, and from Georgia.
On the whole, you might compare this area to the best of Westchester,
or Chicago’s North Shore outskirts, or Beverly Hills. That doesn’t mean
there isn’t plenty of dirt. It does mean it has to be something special
before it hits print.
Meanwhile, considerable friction is developing as well-heeled
northerners flock in; a repetition of the carpetbag days.
10. UNCLE SAM: LANDLORD
This is Washington’s largest segment--the federal domain. More than
40 percent of the property in the District is owned by Uncle Sam.
(Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands is said to be the largest private
owner of real estate in the District. She owned the huge Westchester
apartments, but sold the property recently to Hilton.)
Though not contiguous, it has an entity of its own. It is immune from
local law. That is important, because some federal property oozes
across District borders, such as the Pentagon and the National Airport,
both on the Virginia side.
To complicate the confused problem of law enforcement, this federal
potpourri has its own local police--not one force, but several. The
Capitol Police have jurisdiction on the Capitol grounds and several
blocks on either side, as far as the Washington Union station. The
Terminal Police police that. The White House Police are the cops for
the Executive Mansion and surrounding areas. They are under supervision
of the Secret Service, a branch of the Treasury. The Capitol cops are
under control of Congress itself. The terminal, owned by the railroads
and the government, picks its own bulls.