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.
The Park Police are part of the National Park Police, a division of the Department of the Interior. They are the law in the parks and squares, on the boulevards, and on the road in Virginia leading to the Pentagon and the Airport.
All other government buildings are policed by the Public Buildings Police, a Treasury unit. The National Airport, in Virginia, has exempt status. Its own cops not only patrol the grounds, but the main road. The Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery and other military establishments in the vicinity are under jurisdiction of the Armed Services Police.
Hundreds of thousands are employed in this federal domain. Many more use its facilities or live in its lee. This makes the task of policing almost too complex to be figured out by any court.
Elsewhere, when there is a conflict of authority over the situs of a crime, both jurisdictions fight for the right to arrest and try the accused. In the District it works the other way around. If it’s a borderline case, both sides duck.
For instance, if you’re pinched for anything on or along the road leading to the National Airport there is a conflict between the National Park Police, the Airport Police, the local Virginia Police, municipal and county police, and possibly, the MP’s. No one wants any part of it. So there is merry law-breaking in this federal domain.
At this writing, 27,000 people are employed in the Pentagon. It is a city within a city. Like all cities, it has its peccadillos. Many elevator operators are runners for bookies. Many colored messengers, male and female, sell policy slips. Reefers can be had. The cops--all kinds--don’t know what to do about it. The military police don’t like to arrest civilians, even those employed by the Army. The Virginia police say they have no authority because it’s federal property.
The same apathy that marks everything in Washington pervades the Pentagon and other federal buildings. A high Army officer, highly placed because his brother is close to the President, is a homosexual. He had gathered 95 other officers of similar inclinations to form what was known as the “Fairy Brigade.” Though scandalously abnormal acts have been committed within the Pentagon walls, no consequences ensued. No one knew how to go about it. Instead, the suspected fairies were transferred to distant posts--separately, of course--in the hope that when they got into trouble in their new stations their commanding officers would pick up the buck.
More recently a Signal Corps captain in the Pentagon was apprehended lurking in the stair wells, where he exposed himself to young women. The Army took the easiest way--transferred him to Fort Monmouth, where he was eventually chased out of the service.
The same situation applies in all government buildings in the District and in the suburbs. No one wants to do anything about anything. There is scarcely a government installation anywhere in Washington where you can’t place a bet or buy a numbers slip. When elevator jockeys aren’t selling them, clerks and typists, white and dark, are. Dates and assignations are made on U. S. property by government girls looking for fun or extra earnings, and by come-getters who barge in and solicit men for dates after work--even sometimes for affairs right on overstuffed leather couches which we own, you too.
Any punitive action in these cases is not by police officers. When things get out of hand, department heads fire the culprits.