Where, at any time, any were questioned or threatened with contempt, it
was because the situation was so wide open that no cover-up could be
attempted without bringing the newspapers down.
At this writing, Harry Russell, Chicago hoodlum, is the only
recalcitrant witness brought to trial. He’s a small potato, a Jew
taking the rap for the Mafia.
The position of the Committee has been that witnesses could refuse to
incriminate themselves only on federal offenses, but that if it was
state prosecution they feared, they had no immunity--tenuous reasoning
any way you look at it, though many lawyers say it’s legal.
But Kefauver has been letting his enthusiasm get the better of him, and
recently stated at an open hearing, “Don’t think we’re going to let
you get away with this. We are working closely with local prosecutors
and will turn our records over, particularly where anyone defies this
committee.”
Though no comment appeared in the papers, the mob lawyers knew he
had played into their hands. He might have made the contempt stick
before; now, however, since he himself has stated he’s acting as an
agent for the states--though unofficial--it’s a million to one not one
recalcitrant witness will be convicted.
The only state in which the committee got tough before election was
Pennsylvania, where the municipal machines are Republican. In New York,
boss Flynn and Tammany were unmolested, and the onus was put on Dewey
for having tolerated gambling in Saratoga. There was no mention that
when Lehman, F.D.R.’s “good right arm,” was governor, gambling was just
as wide open there, and more so.
One of your reporters remembers seeing a limousine with New York State
license Number 1 parked under the portico of Piping Rock, a notorious
and expensive Saratoga gambling joint run by Luciano. That was Governor
Lehman’s car. It is possible his chauffeur was inside playing dominoes.
But the strategy of the Democratic brain-trust miscarried. People in
New York knew Costello was running the town and trying to get control
of the state, even when the Senate committee, with all its power
and money, fiddled and twiddled. Chicagoans knew the Fischettis and
Capones, Boss Arvey, Dan Gilbert and Senator Scott Lucas were political
bedfellows, which charge was aired daily in the papers during the 1950
campaign.
Wherever the committee gave the Democrats a clean bill, the people
rebelled and kicked them out, most frequently on just that issue. But,
where the committee had tried to show the underworld is tied up with
Republicans, as in Pennsylvania, the GOP scored a great victory.
The two Democratic members of the committee, in addition to Kefauver,
are Lester Hunt, of Wyoming, and Herbert O’Conor of Maryland. Where
Hunt comes from, “crime” means cattle-rustling and claim-jumping.
O’Conor, however, is the Democratic leader of the Maryland
organization, which is in cahoots with one of the tightest and biggest
Mafia concentrations in the country. Not only were no hearings held in
Maryland before election, but Kefauver refused to send investigators
into Prince Georges County, described heretofore as one of the most
vicious crime spots of the country, even when citizens implored him to.
Instead of cracking down on murderers, procurers and dope-peddlers, the
committee wasted time, money and effort on an investigation of comics.
An effort was made to label the strips as the chief cause of America’s
crimes.
The Senate investigating committee has, through ignorance or by design,
been playing directly into the hands of the Mafia. Most Syndicate
key figures no longer have anything personally to do with gambling,
except as bankers and protectors. Gambling is a seasonal business and
investigations and clean-ups are discounted in advance, like rain in
baseball economy and warm weather in Sun Valley. These catastrophes are
averaged off over a long period. The computations contemplate temporary
droughts at the street level. Except for a few who will go to the can
for a few months and be paid for their time, nothing is disturbed.
Bookmakers still take bets right outside the Senate committee room.
If no gambling casinos run in Miami this winter they will next winter.
Meanwhile, those who want to gamble will fly to Havana, where the same
mob operates the wheels and crap games. Anyway, you can still bet on
the nags in Miami, clean-up or no. At this writing, at least two fully
equipped casinos are operating in the area.
But while the committee was grabbing front pages with its gambling
exposures, the big boys were immune in the affairs that really matter
to them, like manipulation of the stock market, black marketing,
smuggling, counterfeiting, dope and other forms of profitable
deviltry, the proceeds of which they invest in real estate and
securities, so that as of now, the crime cartel is more potent in the
money marts of the world than all the highbinders so long hissed at,
the “international bankers.”
After Col. George White, Commr. Anslinger’s ace investigator, on loan
to the Committee, was withdrawn, Scott Lucas high-pressured Truman
to penalize White. White had turned up evidence that beat Lucas in
Illinois.
Purposely or not, Halley even helped the giggling gangsters get rid
of the few rivals who remained. Few Sicilians got a going-over; but
the heat was turned on the handful of Jewish and Irish cheaters who
survived.
Personally, Kefauver is a delightful and appealing personage, tall,
a former football-player with the charm of an F.D.R. and the fine,
delicate features of a Woodrow Wilson. He may well be your next Vice
President. After that--well, any American boy with no such start could
be. His friends kid him and accuse him of saying “Good morning, Mr.
President” every morning when he looks in the mirror as he shaves.
Kefauver frowns at this. He says, “The Chief in the White House will
get sore.”
Kefauver’s main weakness is that he is a Don Quixote for “causes”
(except FEPC), has too much energy and tries to do too many things. He
is on almost every regular and special committee it is possible for a
Senator to make, so hasn’t time to do justice to any. He is in modest
circumstances, cannot be bought or bribed, though he could have had
millions to throw the investigation--as it is being thrown anyway. Many
believe some of that money went elsewhere, without his knowledge.
An employe of the committee, whose name will not be divulged by us,
disgusted by what went on, unburdened himself. He said “a fix was
made in Miami” to relieve a certain wanted hoodlum from testifying;
and that another deal was put over in Chicago to protect some of the
most important Mafistas. A fund was raised in Hollywood to choke off
disclosures.
One investigator had as a chief recommendation, other than brief
service with the F.B.I., that he had been a cop in a mid-Western city.
With this background he was sent in to “bust” the mob in New York, a
job that many District Attorneys couldn’t do. He knew so little of New
York that he had to ask how to get to Times Square.
This investigator, “unable” to find Joe Adonis during a 90-day search,
was very diligent when it came to finding himself a new, high-paying
job. During the course of an investigation into mob control of
legitimate business, it was testified that one Bill Giglio, now under
indictment on a tax rap, had “muscled” into a sugar and candy company
during the last war, and that as a result of such activities he now
owned a research and development laboratory, the entire output of which
was being sold to a large and respected chemical corporation.
While going over Giglio’s books the Kefauver man naturally had occasion
to call on the large corporation, and he ingratiated himself with its
officers, who were not called to testify in Washington. The result was
that, right smack in the middle of the Kefauver investigations, this
dick quit to head up the plant-security set-up of the big corporation,
which now has a lot of war contracts.
But the payoff is that, a couple of years ago, before the Kefauver
Committee was thought of, the same fellow was in charge of security at
a Long Island plant making restricted military products. There it was
discovered that the future Kefauver agent was protecting the bookmakers
in the plant, and he was booted out after the F.B.I. was tipped off.
The book at this plant was operated by Joe Adonis. Kefauver was so
informed, but did not fire his agent.
Federal and state enforcement agencies are squawking that the mob is
getting access to confidential files through leaks in the committee.
But if the committee had wanted to probe, the goods were in reach.
Individuals all over the country sought to put facts in its hands.
Whenever possible, those who managed the investigations looked the
other way.
Bill Drury, the honest Chicago ex-police captain, who was slain by
gunmen last September, might have been alive now were it not for this
committee. We were in constant communication with Drury, in fact Jack
Lait received a letter from him in New York the morning after he was
assassinated. Almost his last act was mailing it. When the committee
first got under way, your authors suggested to Kefauver that he hire
Drury and his partner, Captain Tom Connelly, as investigators. These
men knew more first-hand about the underworld than almost anyone alive.
Counsel Halley interposed. He told us the men were not “reliable,”
because they had been fired from the Chicago police force. That was
their chief recommendation to us. They had been rooked out of the
crookedest force in the country because they were fearless, honest and
untouchable.
We told Kefauver the only way he could convince us his investigation
was on the up-and-up was to hire these men. He promised us he would.
That was in July, 1950.
Meanwhile, Drury and Connelly sought to contact Kefauver, failing which
they tried to get in touch with Halley and the chief investigator of
the committee. They hated the mob so hotly, they offered to work for
nothing, though they were poor men. Had Drury been retained as an
investigator, he’d still be living. No cop has ever been killed except
in actual combat. The underworld never murders a policeman who is going
about his business. But an ex-cop--yoho.
A lot of misinformation has been published about what preceded the
actual assassination, last September 25. After his death, committee
employes realized they would have to explain Drury’s frequent phone
calls. A story was dreamed up in Chicago to the effect that Drury
was seeking “protection” and that Halley, after a couple of weeks’
consideration, had agreed to arrange for it. That runs for the end
book. Drury never asked anyone for protection. He was the bravest man
we ever knew. He often traveled without a gun, but the mobsters feared
his fists more than bullets. We spoke to him a few days before he died.
He was not frightened. He was angry. He told us he had been trying to
contact committee investigators for weeks to give them information. He
said that ever since he had outlined to them what he was prepared to
prove he got brushed off when he called again.
The Democratic _Chicago Sun-Times_ charged categorically that Drury
was rubbed out because someone on the Kefauver Committee “leaked”
to the mobsters what Drury said he had the goods on. He told us his
investigations implicated someone on the committee’s staff.
A few days after the murder, Kefauver phoned us long distance to
tell us to get all our records and correspondence concerning Drury
together as he was going to subpena us at once, in an effort to solve
the cowardly crime. That was October 1, 1950. As these words were
being typed in February, 1951, the subpena remained unserved and the
assassination unpunished.
On the other hand, Lait and Mortimer were under considerable pressure
from important personages, Republicans as well as Democrats, “to lay
off Halley,” and place the blame for the miscarriage of the Kefauver
committee on the chairman instead of on his staff. We refused to be
bought, bribed, threatened or intimidated.
By resolution, the original life of the committee was until February
28, but it is probable that additional hearings will be authorized for
March.
The plan, as this went to press, was to save all the fireworks for
a final blow-out in New York, at which the glamor pusses of the
underworld, such as Virginia Hill, dubbed by us “Mafia Rose,” would
be called for the publicity value. Virginia was served with much
hullabaloo in September, but was saved six months to hypo the last act.
Frank Costello was also slated to be called if he “cared to talk.”
The big boys have brazenly stood on their “constitutional rights”
on the advice of high-priced counsel who assured them their chances
against conviction on contempt, which is a misdemeanor punishable by a
year in a Federal “country club,” were about a hundred to one.
It was decided by the Mafia Grand Council that if things got too hot,
Costello would have to be the goat. He has been getting too much
publicity for the conservative rulers of the Unione, who still live in
cold-water tenements with fat old-country wives.
They resent the airs put on by the glamor-boy hoods, who, they feel,
and with some justification, are putting the finger of the law on the
syndicate.
One Mafia faction is for going further. In the event the spotlight hits
Costello his number is up. He has so been told by Tony Ricci, alias
Goebels, who manages many such things.
We have not seen it, nor have we any confidential information about the
contents of the committee’s final report, but we are willing to bet it
will be along these lines:
1) There is crime.
2) No political party has the monopoly on it.
3) There seems to be a Mafia.
4) Gamblers should pay their income tax.
5) Kids should go to Sunday school.
6) Communities should appoint Crime Prevention Societies.
7) Because of the international situation, let’s forget it and call
the whole thing off.
The plight of honest Senator Kefauver is not unique. Wherever possible,
the underworld uses such characters to do their dirty work. They fall
for it, probably because dreamers and social planners are gullible,
not practical like their more conservative brethren. That’s why
political bosses frequently back them and surprise semi-suspicious
suckers who think they know things.
For instance, when the late Boss Kelly of Chicago, one of the most
ruthless thieves who ever lived, thought he saw the handwriting on the
wall, he nominated good men to run for Governor and Senator. At no time
after Adlai Stevenson went to Springfield and Professor Paul Douglas
got to Washington did these Utopians ever open their mouths or do
anything, or even complain about the iniquities in Chicago, though we
told plenty and a lot of other dirt wasn’t confidential.
He hand-picked as his successor Martin Kennelly, a mild old bachelor
who didn’t know when it was Wednesday. This was a “businessmen’s
candidate.” The mob and their Democratic sidekicks gave him the
business.
Kefauver even has a soft spot for accused Commies. He was one of the
seven Senators to vote against the McCarran Bill, which Marcantonio
opposed in the House. Douglas, who didn’t have guts enough to vote no,
because that would have imperiled Lucas’ chance in Illinois, did hop in
to uphold the President’s veto.
The only Senator running for reelection who opposed the McCarran Bill
all the way was Lehman, a ticket-mate of mob-backed Pecora and Lynch,
an old codger of eminent respectability and Wall Street millions, who
is and always was “safe”--he’s too wrapped up in Park Avenue dignity
and too flattered by public honors to see or understand that with
his silk-gloved hands he pulls hot chestnuts out of the oven for the
dirtiest crooks, traitors and political plotters in the land.
27. LUCKY NUMBERS
The first thing a Congressional investigating committee gets, the sine
qua non, is an appropriation. The next is a sheaf of time-tables. Then
comes the joyful junketing-time to remote places--remote from the
capital and remote from the subject.
The Kefauver committee made the grand tour--California and Florida,
Chicago and New York, about everything but Yellowstone Park. Its golden
fleece was gambling. They could have cleaned up their quest for about
$1.60 on a taxi meter.
All the evidence, all the interstate involvements and local conditions
which are the particular province of Congress, they could find in
Washington. We did. All gambling in the capital is interstate because
it is inseparable from its lines into and out of Maryland and Virginia.
We outlined the setup of the nationwide underworld Syndicate. We
brought it to the District line. At that point the on-the-spot gamblers
take over.
They have been mentioned as Emmitt Warring, king of Georgetown; Attilio
Acalotti, “mayor” of Dupont Circle; Sam Beard and his partner Gary
Quinn, and the Sussman brothers. Of money gouged from suckers, 90 per
cent clears through them, and “Black Jack” Kelleher, Frank Erickson’s
local observer.
A curious situation here is that “policy” or “numbers” gets a bigger
play than bookmaking. The reverse is true almost everywhere else. The
reason ascribed by the cognoscenti is that while everyone earns a
fairly good living, few have enough surplus cash for important horse
betting. But numbers tickets can be bought for from one cent up. That
game is far more profitable for the operators, too. Bookmakers can’t do
much better than putting a ceiling on track odds. They must follow the
mutuels, though they stop at a 20-to-1 payoff. Bookies who can’t lay
off enough often lose on a day.
The winning numbers pay only 600 to 1, whereas 999 numbers are drawn,
and the draw can be fixed.
In most towns, the numbers play is predominantly by Negroes. In
Washington it is general, with white government employes in the
majority. The policy slips are usually sold by colored runners, often
messengers and elevator boys in government buildings. The salesman
withholds 25 per cent of the gross. Average booking is $50 a day.
The take from the numbers, in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, is
deposited in the branch of the Hamilton Bank at 20th and Pennsylvania
Avenue, in the Foggy Bottom section. The Congressional committee
investigating local crime ascertained that this bank did not report the
large deposits of small coins. The deposits are withdrawn each day and
transferred to Maryland, where local representatives of the Syndicate
divide the receipts and send its cut to the Mafia in New York.
The sale of numbers is so widespread, the police can make only token
arrests. Invariably, when the peddler, usually a Negro, is locked up, a
representative of a bonding outfit appears at once and posts bail. Next
day a member of the Charlie Ford law firm appears in court. Several
defendants testified the lawyers paid their fines. The operation will
be described in detail later.
Numbers sellers are picked up all over the town, and they are not coy.
For instance, police got a squeal that two men were selling policy
slips from an auto parked in the 1200 block of 7th Street, NW. Cops
questioned them and numbers slips “just rolled out of a paper bag on
the car floor.” The prisoners were very “surprised,” the more so when
200 numbers books were found in the car’s trunk.
Vice squad dicks stopped in to get a shine at 209 K Street NW. They saw
numbers lying on a chair next to two men. When they searched them they
found many more in their possession.
Policy is a lottery. Under federal law, that is a felony. But the only
way to cut in on the racket is to get tough. Twenty-five-dollar fines,
paid by lawyers reimbursed by the bosses, are no deterrent. But Judge
Thomas D. Quinn handcuffed the police even on that. He served notice
on the U. S. Attorney’s office that he “will not tolerate” prosecutors
delaying court action on gambling cases until they can get grand jury
indictments.
According to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the government
is within its rights requesting these continuances, but Curtis P.
Mitchell, an attorney for some arrested as gamblers, alleged the civil
rights of numbers suspects were being disregarded.
Judge Edward M. Curran spiked the government’s case when it attempted
to clean up gambling in Thomas Circle. Though one defendant pleaded
guilty to operation of a lottery, Judge Curran ruled police did not
have enough “probable cause” to arrest the others, who were admittedly
in possession of numbers slips.
Washington judges openly acknowledge the fact that the fines they
impose are paid by the bosses.
Judge Henry A. Schweinhaut, of the United States District Court,
frivolously presented a numbers operator named “Lemon” a chance to
prove there is honor in Washington’s gaming fraternity.
He asked him to come forward and provide the $300 fine for an aged
Negro who was convicted before him of taking numbers bets.
“Lemon put up bond for the defendant. Maybe Lemon will pay the fine,”
said the District Solomon. “I’ll give him a chance to prove his loyalty
to an old employe.”
Defense Attorney Mitchell, who has figured in these pages before,
quickly disillusioned His Honor. “As a practical matter, a numbers
backer wouldn’t be apt to pay a $300 fine for a man who only had a
three-dollar-a-day numbers book,” he explained.
But the judge winked and said, “If Lemon doesn’t pay, it might get
around that he will let one of his men stay in jail. It might reduce
his prestige in the fraternity.”
Did we hear someone talking about legalized and licensed gambling? This
is it, with a bow from the U. S. District Court.
In recent years the top rulers of the netherworld have disassociated
themselves as much as possible from street-level vice and crime,
preferring to remain on the sidelines, where their take comes in clean.
The situation in Washington is a pattern and example for the rest of
the country, because, for obvious reasons, the tygoons have preferred
to have no direct dealings with law-breaking in the nation’s capital.
The method whereby the take from policy, Washington’s chief form
of gambling, goes upstairs is unique and ingenious, the product of
brilliant legal scheming.
First of all, each local numbers bank is, for the records, completely
independent. Its operator, who employs the runners who actually sell
the lottery tickets, is supposed to be completely unaffiliated, and
it would take a smarter guy than any government lawyer to prove him
otherwise.
In the beginning, most of the local banks were really unaffiliated.
Since then, on occasion, some have tried to remain that way. This is
what happens when they do: The Big Mob sends in “customers” to bet a
certain number; then, through its ability to control the daily winning
number, that number comes up and the banker goes broke.
But if he wants to play ball, they sell him an “insurance policy” which
guarantees him from undue loss--which is prevented by the control of
the winning number. His daily premium is the payoff money.
The funniest one happened when a policy salesman asked police to lock
him up because one of his clients had a $60 hit which the runner
couldn’t pay off--having lost the money playing the numbers. It came
about when a cop admonished Lawrence Fields, obviously drunk, to quiet
down. Fields begged to be arrested on the numbers charge. The cop asked
Fields whether he realized the seriousness of what he was saying.
Fields replied, “Nothing will happen. My boss pays protection.”
The boss was identified in court as Sam Beard. Beard claims he is in
the pickle business, but he once served 53 months in jail for gambling
and 13 months for tax evasion. Fields got 90 days. His client is
waiting outside the District jail.
But don’t think bookmaking is a peanut industry either. Local
authorities estimate the take of bookmakers within the District at
$100,000,000 a year--not gross business, but net profits.
Horse money goes to Prince Georges, Maryland, as already described.
Snags Lewis, the wire service representative, transmits the payoff and
profits to New York and New Jersey.