the fact that positions in the customs service are dependent upon
politics. The men who built up the system of customs graft had secured
their appointments because they had political influence. They afterward
used that influence and put their easy money back of it. Their power
grew. It made it possible for them to dictate appointments more
important than their own, even to the collectorship itself. It made it
possible for them to bring about the removal of any smaller official who
seemed to stand in their way. Men not in the ring learned to wink at
many things that they saw. When an emissary of the crooked customs crowd
went to an importer, even where he was honest, it came to be known that
it was wise to listen to any proposal made. Thus did the machine gather
force.
Just one example of the workings of the system. An Italian named
Costello was an importer of cheese. He was a successful, enterprising
and honest merchant. One day he received a large shipment from Italy,
upon which he expected to pay a duty of $10,000. The cargo was unloaded
and weighed by the customs representatives. That night an emissary of
the ring called upon the Italian merchant. He showed the record of
weights for the cheese cargo. According to this record Costello would
have had to pay a duty of $5,000. It showed but half the weight in
cheese that had actually arrived.
"We save you $5,000," said the spokesman. "We expect you to divide the
profit."
"But I believe in dealing honestly with the Government," said Costello.
"I have always done so and I have prospered."
"My tip to you," said the go-between, "is to do as the weighers suggest.
They could as easily have charged you overweight as underweight.
Besides, you will save much money."
The importer, a foreigner, thus advised by representatives of the
Government of his adoption, took the tip and thereafter profited
through this official corruption and shared the duties thus saved.
Costello received most of his goods as part of what were known as
"Mediterranean cargoes," cheese, macaroni, olive oil. The Government was
afterward found to have been losing an average of $20,000 on each
Mediterranean cargo that came to port.
The case is typical. The representatives of the Government practically
forced the importers into these deceptions. The customs service and
commercial New York became permeated with this sort of fraud.
Henry L. Stimson was appointed United States district attorney in 1909
and determined to clean up these customs frauds. William Loeb, Jr., was
collector of the port, and of the same mind. The two men got their heads
together and considered ways and means. A big cleanup followed and in
bringing it about the work of Detective Billy Gard played a most
important part.
This young special agent was told to go out and master the detail of New
York customs, a service that was new to him, to come to understand them
so well that he could place his finger on the points where things were
going wrong, to pick out the men in the service who were corrupt, to
get his information in such form that it would be admissible in court as
evidence and so strong that it would insure convictions. He was to do
all this in the face of the unfriendliness of the service he was to
study, despite all the stumbling-blocks that would be put in his way, in
opposition to the dominant political machine of the port, in the face of
a lack of any special knowledge of the service. Young Gard accepted the
assignment with a grin.
"What are you doing on the customs cases?" District Attorney Stimson
asked three weeks later.
"Going to the baseball games," said Gard.
"I hadn't noticed any cargoes being unloaded out that way," said
Stimson. "How long have you been a fan?"
"Just a week," said the special agent. "Never attended a game before in
my life. I sit in the nice, warm sun of the bleachers to the right among
the fanatics. I have learned to keep a score card already."
And such were actually the facts. To solve the riddle of the customs
frauds Agent Gard was working hard at the task of becoming a baseball
fan.
Two weeks he had devoted to the docks. During the first of these weeks
he had gone from wharf to wharf and from man to man. He had asked many
questions which were but the common places that any individual who
wanted to get a smattering of the detail of such a business would have
asked. He was received tolerantly by the old heads of the customs crowd.
Many agents had been to the docks ahead of him and most of these had
been experts. If they began to get dangerous, political influence was
used in having them pulled off the job or money was used in having them
fail to report any wrongdoing. But this youngster who did not know the
simplest things about the customs service--he was hardly worthy of
notice.
But during that week Gard had not expected to become a customs expert.
His plan for getting results was founded on a different idea. He had
been hunting for a man who suited the purpose of his plan, and had found
him. This man was an Irishman by the name of O'Toole, who was one of the
weighers at a certain dock in Brooklyn. He had in the back of his head
all the facts that the special agent lacked. If he could be induced to
cooperate, the case might be worked out.
O'Toole was a man of fifty, and had been a weigher for eleven years.
Gard had learned many things about him. He had no family, his great
enthusiasm was baseball, and his weakness was a certainty of going to
the mat with John Barleycorn every third Saturday night. He was a
lonesome man, and sour and cynical.
"How long have you been on this investigation?" O'Toole asked Gard
before the conversation had gone far.
"Just this week," said the special agent.
"Have you found anything?" asked the weigher.
"Not yet," said the special agent.
"Well, if you want your job to last, don't," said the Irishman.
They discussed the general points in the business of weighing cargoes
and the work of the force having it in charge. But the special agent had
gathered the idea that O'Toole was not in sympathy with conditions, that
he was not a member of the inner circle. Yet an intelligent man serving
as weigher for eleven years would know secrets that would be of interest
to the Government, and O'Toole was embittered. He should be cultivated.
The days of the following week the special agent spent about the docks
dressed as a rough laboring man. The nights he spent in nearby saloons
with the acquaintances he had made during the day. The idea in this was
to determine what information the laborers were able to pick up and
whether they could be used as informers. Many of these were Irishmen, as
smart as the best of them, and pretty well aware of what was going on.
From the gossip of these men it was also possible to get many a flash on
the character of the men higher up. O'Toole they pronounced honest.
"They won't give him a chance to get on the inside," said one, "because
they are afraid he might talk when he is drunk."
"He wouldn't take dirty money, anyway," insisted another. "He is an
honest man."
The third week the special agent was devoting to the ball park, sitting
in the bleachers three seats back of O'Toole. He had determined that the
Irishman should tell him the story of the customs frauds from the
inside. He knew that, to get on a basis of sufficient good feeling to
bring this about, he must approach O'Toole on the most favorable basis
possible. Too much care could not be taken in laying the foundation for
his final proposal to the weigher. The man's love for baseball first
presented itself. The agent determined to become a fellow fan with him.
Thus should he come to know him better and under most favorable
circumstances.
On two occasions the special agent bowed to the weigher in leaving the
bleachers. He had thus got himself identified in that individual's mind
as a fellow fan. It was the end of the second week, however, before the
conditions developed that made just the opening that Gard wanted. The
situation worked itself out on Saturday afternoon. The game had gone
three innings when a flurry of rain threatened to bring it to a close.
Then there was a downpour. The people in the bleachers scurried for
shelter. There seemed little chance for the game being resumed, and most
of the bleacherites filed out under their umbrellas.
Some twenty enthusiastic fans held to their seats on the chance that the
game would go on. Among these were O'Toole and the special agent. Both
were drenched to the skin. Finally the umpire announced that the game
was called, and the stragglers turned homeward. As O'Toole started to go
he was greeted by Special Agent Gard.
"By jove," said the young man, "I believe you are a more enthusiastic
fan than I am."
"They shouldn't have called the game for a few drops of water,"
complained the saturated weigher. "But let us go some place and get a
drink."
Whereupon the two dripping fans found their way to a nearby barroom and
talked of club standings and batting averages while they warmed up with
copious drafts of red-eyed liquor.
"Boy," said the weigher, after the fourth drink, "have you got a
family?"
"No," answered Gard. "I am not married."
"Go get married," urged the older man. "When you begin to get old and
have only a solitary room to which to go and no children nor
grandchildren to give you an interest in the world, there is nothing to
live for. You perform your small duties with a great void in the back
of your mind. There is no stage setting that makes the petty play seem
worth while. The only relief is an occasional Saturday night when you
forget."
The special agent began to realize that the weigher was starting on his
tri-weekly fling. It also began to be evident that he was of the order
of inebriates who indulge in a debauch of self-pity as an accompaniment
to their liquor.
"It always seemed to me," said the special agent, "that a man could
become so absorbed in his work that it would fill his whole life.
Particularly should this be true when he has a task so important as
yours."
"Mother of Mary!" exclaimed the Irishman. "Become absorbed in watching a
bunch of thieves always at work? Would you like to spend your declining
years in sitting idly by and watching your employer and benefactor
robbed?"
"Why do this?" said Gard. "Why not lay the whole thing before the right
authority and do a worth-while piece of work in cleaning up the
service?"
"Yes, and be broken and thrown into the discard to starve," was the
reply. "I have seen too many of them go up against the gang. None of it
for O'Toole.
"Just one tip I will give you," said the weigher after hearing the
special agent's argument in favor of lending his aid to showing up the
frauds. "If you will examine the records of Mediterranean cargoes you
will find that, during the past ten years, such cargoes have regularly
been about twice as heavy when handled by certain weighers as when
handled by others. The men whose records show these cargoes always light
are the crooks. Those who show them heavy are honest. The solution is
merely a matter of mathematics."
With this semiconfidence the agent contented himself. He continued to go
to the baseball games, but met O'Toole only casually. In the meantime
the records of weighers were being examined. In a week the figures were
complete. They showed these men divided into two groups that were far
apart with relation to the weights of cargoes. The group that weighed
light was the larger.
A few days later Gard saw O'Toole after a ball game. He told the weigher
that District Attorney Stimson wanted to see him that night at the
Federal building, that the district attorney was under great obligations
to him for the tip to examine weigher's records and wanted to thank him.
"O'Toole," said the district attorney that night, "this is a time when
the Government needs the aid of honest men. We know that men who would
clean up customs graft have, in the past, come to grief. But this is not
now true. I have taken up your case with the Secretary of the Treasury
himself. That official asks me to inform you that, in case you aid us in
cleaning up this situation, your place will not only be made secure but
that you should figure that the service will be remembered in the light
of your future interests. We know that your record is clean. We want
your help. Are you with us?"
Agent Gard had selected the right man. O'Toole, at first timid in his
fear of the ring, became an enthusiast over the task of weeding out the
graft. The dominance of local politicians had no terrors for him with
Washington at his back. The value of all he had learned in eleven years
at the scales was made to supplement the lack of customs experience on
the part of the special agent. His acquaintance with the customs force
in the port made his information invaluable. So enthusiastic did he
become that he missed three ball games in succession and went past four
Saturday nights without his customary tussle with the spirits that bring
forgetfulness.
O'Toole confirmed much of the list of short-weight employees that had
been made up. Of the derelictions of many of these he had personal
knowledge. With their methods he was entirely familiar and was able to
point the way toward the establishing of guilt so it would be admissible
as evidence and would secure convictions.
That an individual weigher may report short weights it is necessary that
his associate at the scales, a checker, should share in his deceptions,
for the checker is a witness of the record of the scales. In the
celebrated short weight cases of the sugar scandals, the checker had a
steel spring like a corset stay that he thrust into the mechanism of the
scale and retarded it, thus resulting in a showing of short weight. But
in the case of the Mediterranean cargoes the fraud was less disguised.
The scales were allowed to record the proper weight, but the weigher
and the checker, in collusion, divided the figure by two in setting it
down. The system was both simple and effective. It worked for
twenty-five years.
Gard consulted with O'Toole upon the advisability of using workmen about
the docks as informers. The weigher thought this could be done and knew
a number of men who might be so used. A laborer, for instance, working
about the scales, was able to see the amount that the beam registered at
given times. He could easily remember the big numbers, those that
represented the thousands of pounds, until he had a chance to set them
down. He could thus get a rough record of the weighing of a given half
day. This could afterward be compared with the figures of the weigher. A
pretty close check could thus be put on the given suspects.
By such methods fairly clear cases were obtained against given weighers
and checkers. After much information was gathered certain guilty men
would be selected who would be given chances to tell all about their
knowledge of the frauds. These men would be given immunity. Thus would a
few of the guilty escape punishment; but thus, also, would the
Government learn all the details of the frauds that it might be able to
provide effectually against them.
Special agents were set to watch every suspect, to learn his manner of
life, how he spent his money, whether he could be trapped on the
outside. When the Government needed the confession of a given man he
would be called upon and talked to in some such manner as this:
"You, as checker, worked with Weigher Smith on a given cargo. The
weights shown by the scales Smith divided by two and you passed them.
That night a messenger was sent to Costello with a statement of the
short weight he had passed. Costello paid half the duty on this short
weight. You and the weigher split on the basis of forty, sixty.
"We know of a score of offenses equally glaring on your part. The
Government needs you as a witness. Under the circumstances do you not
think it would be advisable for you to go with me to the district
attorney and make a complete statement of all you know about customs
frauds?"
The man that the Government wanted usually came through with all he
knew. So were the cases made absolute and so were all the methods of
graft revealed. Eleven weighers and checkers were convicted and sent to
the penitentiary. Many hundreds of thousands of dollars in duties that
had been avoided were assessed against and paid by importers. The
Government was lenient with most of these because of its chagrin over
the part played by its representatives and because the initiative in the
offending had usually been taken by Government agents.
Altogether the cleaning up of the customs scandals in the port of New
York was a most complicated task. The work of Special Agent Gard is but
a fragment of it, but was vastly important and decidedly typical of the
problem in hand and its solution.
IX
WITH THE REVOLUTION MAKERS
The Isla Dolorosa is in the Rio Grande River a few miles below El Paso.
It is Mexican territory and is owned by an aged ranchman named Jose
Encino. If one should start a camp fire anywhere on the island he would
be running a monstrous risk, for so great is the quantity of ammunition
that has been smuggled thus far on its way to revolutionary war and
buried, that any such fire might cause a huge explosion.
It was in the moonshine of a clear November night in 1911 that a boat
drifted down the Rio Grande from the American side, pulled up among the
cattails of the north shore of the island and was beached beneath a
great cottonwood tree that stood out against the sky as a landmark. Two
men stepped ashore and waited in the shadows. Fifteen minutes later two
riders splashed into the water from the Mexican side, floundered
through the stream that but came to the stirrups, and pointed the noses
of their horses for the same huge tree. Nearing it they halted.
"Reyes," said a voice from the darkness.
"Gomez," responded a rider.
The test of this interchange seemed to have been satisfactory for a
small, dark man emerged from the shadow of the cottonwood and helped the
riders to dismount. One of these later proved to be a woman who was
treated with great courtesy by the small man. When the horses were tied
the four seated themselves beneath the tree in a spot where the
underbrush shut out the world. From the fitful light of an occasional
match that served to light the eternal cigarettes of these Mexicans, an
observer, if it had been possible for one to have looked on, might have
studied four interesting faces.
The bearer of news and evidently the leader of the party was the small,
dark man already mentioned. As it afterward developed he was Dr. Rafael
Flores of El Paso. Doctor Flores, as the flicker of a match revealed,
was a man of some sixty years of age, a thin, wiry individual with
refined and almost classic features. He was a practising physician, a
citizen of means and repute in the border city. The man who had come
with him in the boat was named Comacho. He was short, square built,
deeply pock-marked. He was notorious along the border, particularly in
Lower California. He was an anarchist and an expert with explosives and
was suspected of having been connected with many dire deeds.
The man who came on horseback was huge and heavy and wore always a red
flannel shirt. He it was who had led the assault on Juarez when the
troops of Francisco Villa had captured that city early in the Madero
campaign. He it was who inflicted some of the early atrocities upon
prisoners, who plied the torch and who had to be discouraged in his
activities by even his bandit associates. "Red Shirt" Pena he had since
been called. His specialty was smuggling fire arms over the border. He
had sixty loyal followers in the vicinity of El Carmen.
And the woman! Señorita Josefa Calderon was the name by which she was
known. She was from the interior, was something of a mystery never
entirely understood, but the current belief was that she was a sister of
General Orozco. That uncontrolled chief of rebels was even then
stationed at Juarez in command of Madero troops and was vacillating
between allegiance to the new president and the leading of a revolt
against him. Señorita Calderon, veiled, dark-eyed, slim as a cactus, was
thought to be his messenger.
"There is news," said Doctor Flores, as soon as the party had settled
itself. "General Reyes is in San Antonio. He arrived at New Orleans a
week ago, came on to San Antonio where he was given a great
demonstration. He has opened revolutionary headquarters there and every
mail brings letters and every train brings messengers assuring him of
support in overthrowing Madero. He has arranged for money to finance the
movement. The friends of Emilio Vasquez Gomez are busily at work along
the border. The American financial interests in Mexico are back of us.
We are to open headquarters in El Paso and begin the active organization
of our forces."
"But the money," said "Red Shirt" Pena. "We can do nothing until we
have money with which to buy ammunition."
"The money," assured the doctor, "is to be immediately forthcoming. In
that connection I have a mission for the Señorita Calderon. She is to go
immediately to San Antonio to report to the chief and to get the money."
"When the money arrives," said Comacho, the anarchist, "all things will
be possible. There is dynamite cached at Newman and more at Alamagordo.
Ramon Sanchez has other stores of it at Phoenix. We can start action at
half a dozen points and wake every dozing peon in Mexico. But provide
the money, doctor, and I will guarantee to wake up two nations. There is
little question of getting results either through the overthrow of
Madero or intervention by the United States."
"Likewise will the arms begin to cross the river as soon as they may be
bought," volunteered Pena. "I have many men ready to travel back and
forth and each will carry a gun and a box of cartridges each trip."
"And the señorita?" asked Doctor Flores. "Can she go for us to San
Antonio?"
"As the señor wishes," said that young woman. "But where shall I report
on my return?"
"Back of my residence," said the doctor, "there is a small building
opening into the alley. There are no windows. We will meet there."
After a long discussion of the details of the organization of the junta,
this first gathering of the arch-conspirators broke up.
It was a week after this meeting in the Rio Grande that Archie Dobbs,
special agent of the Department of Justice, assigned particularly to the
Mexican border to look after violations of the neutrality laws, began to
notice the frequency with which groups of Mexicans were to be seen
engaged in earnest conversation in the streets of El Paso. About the
Orndorff hotel there were in evidence groups of wealthy appearing
grandees, such as own great ranches beyond the border. Idling about the
Mexican saloons were many big-hatted vaqueros, such as make up the
armies of any revolutionary movement when trouble starts across the
line.
Dobbs went to see Juan Ortego. This young son of Chihuahua was one of
the dependable men of Madero. Ortego was a member of the personal
secret service of the new president and his station at El Paso was
regarded as important as an outpost of trouble for the government.
"What is in the air?" asked the American special agent of Ortego.
"Revolution," said the Mexican.
"Whom have they got?"
"Reyes, Gomez, probably Orozco, possibly Villa," said Ortego.
"Have you got an informer among them?" Dobbs asked.
"No, I have failed in that respect," was the answer.
"Who is the one military leader that Madero can trust?" Dobbs wanted to
know.
The Mexican secret service man recommended General Herrera at Chihuahua.
He also stated that Doctor Flores was the Reyes representative at El
Paso.
Archie Dobbs acted at once. The Department of Justice has its special
agents who will fit into almost any condition that is likely to arise.
Billy Gard, for instance, had been assigned to this work on the Mexican
border because of his knowledge of Spanish. As he was growing up his
father had served for many years in the consular service and Billy had
become as a native of the Latin countries. It had been his pride as a
lad to assume every characteristic of the land to which his father was
assigned and it was probably this dissembling that led him into the
detective game. With a bit of a Mexican touch to his wearing apparel and
a covering of alkali dust he now became a typical son of the land of the
south.