It cited the case of Dorothy A. McCreedy as a specific example of tieups between criminals and government officials, stating:
“The McCreedy woman is a convicted madame, a major figure in the prostitution racket in California for years and operator of two large whore-houses in Honolulu.”
She was reported to the Income Tax Bureau as a suspected evader, but “she is also a partner in a business called Safety Step Sales Co., and one of her partners is Ernest M. Schino, chief field deputy in the Office of the Collector of Internal Revenue.”
They tell a spicy story about Dorothy, whom we know well--personally, not professionally. When F. D. Roosevelt made his first trip to Hawaii, the Secret Service failed to send ahead a black open touring-car of expensive make, familiar and standard for the President on open display. Honolulu was winnowed. Only one such car was found in the Territory. It was owned by Dorothy, who used to drive her gals through town, to show them off, for promotion.
Dorothy pridefully lent the car. Everyone in Honolulu recognized it on sight, but the President didn’t know that. He flashed his historic grin, waved his hat, but couldn’t understand why the cheers were accompanied by an obbligato of guffaws.
It was charged, and never refuted in the 1950 campaign, by both Governor Dewey and Mayor Impellitteri that Ed Flynn, New York political boss and intimate of the late President Roosevelt, is Frank Costello’s contact in New York State. Flynn, who has, and retained after the debacle, the national patronage in the state, used it frequently to procure appointments in high places, including the federal district bench, the New York State Supreme Court and some prosecutors, of men known to be friendly to associates of Costello. His defeated choice for governor of New York, former Congressman Walter J. Lynch, of the Bronx, had, while he was in Congress, introduced a “sleeper” which would have permitted the underworld kings, notorious for such frauds, to evade prison sentences for tax delinquency.
A report, in the possession of the Los Angeles Police Department, which we have seen, states that Flynn or someone who looked remarkably like him--with Frank Costello, Phil Kastel and others--was in Mexico City in December, 1948. Costello was in conferences that contemplated taking over the Mexican National Lottery. The group was partied by A. C. Blumenthal, expatriate New York showman.
Lynch, like his boss Ed Flynn, was a never-deviating New Deal-Fair Deal Democrat. He never voted against an administration measure. In the last Congress there was a mighty affinity between New Dealers and crooked dealers. For instance, former Senator Lucas, of Illinois, the majority leader, was beholden to the Nash-Kelly-Arvey machine. Appointments of shady figures to federal positions in Illinois cleared through him, the senior Senator, as all must.
Left-wing Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey, of Minnesota, is a pal of ex-convict Charles Ward, millionaire calendar printer. Ward has many ties with the underworld all over the country, and was one of the financial backers of Anna Roosevelt’s attempt to start a daily newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona. This was once he was outsmarted in a money deal. As is not unknown in the Roosevelt tradition, he got one cent on the dollar back. Bill O’Dwyer said he found a direct tie between Ward and Brooklyn’s Murder, Inc.
Under such auspices, the underworld is establishing a firm grip on Minnesota. Its attempt to take over the Minneapolis and St. Paul traction systems is a part of the general picture across the land and was exposed by Lait last summer in his _Daily Mirror_ column. It resulted in the indictment of one of the mobsters, Kid Cann, so called because of his many incarcerations.
The New Dealers have been kind to the underworld ever since their victorious election in 1932, after Costello and Jimmy Hines, with Ed Kelly, had successfully managed the convention fight in Chicago. While Frank Murphy was Attorney-General he saw to it that prosecuting attorneys laid off the boys. Internal Revenue agents prepared a tax case against Costello and Frank Erickson, but the U.S. Attorney was ordered to pigeonhole it.
Following Frank Erickson’s conviction in New York on gambling charges, District Attorney’s investigators seized his books and papers. Among them was a memo reading, “Phone Daddy Long Legs.”
The sleuths jumped on this. They figured it was a code or nickname for one of the mob aces. That is one of the toughest problems encountered by racket-busters, i.e., breaking down the aliases used by the kings of the underworld on their books and in their records.
The gumshoes rushed over to the Island and interviewed Erickson in his cell.
“Who is Daddy Long Legs?” they asked. “And what did you want to call him for?”
Erickson laughed uproariously. “Why shouldn’t I phone him?” he inquired. “After all, I’m related to him by marriage and he’s the Vice President.”
After the investigators had recovered from their shocks, this is what Erickson told them:
“An in-law of mine is an in-law of Barkley’s. Barkley visited me in my Long Island home. My grand-kids are crazy about him. They nicknamed him ‘Daddy Long Legs.’”
The story of the Binaggio killing in Kansas City, anticipated in _Chicago Confidential_, is recent, but the full background of the case has never been aired before.
President Truman is and was a loyal member of his county Democratic organization. And as such--a party man who never split his ticket--he was forced to go along, though unwillingly, when the Chicago hoodlums put Binaggio in as the leader.
When the President first went into politics, the Mafia was just one of the mobs. It had not organized the country. In the 1920s, most of the big city machines were owned by Irish bosses, who were tied up with the local Irish underworld gangs. Each city was independent of all other cities.
On the surface, the conviction of Tom Pendergast by U.S. Attorney Maurice Milligan was a smashing victory for law and order. But it was, at the same time, a greater victory for the Capone and Costello mob. There are high government cops--not friends of the administration, either--who have the wild idea that the only effect of Pendergast’s conviction was to permit Charley Fischetti’s ambassador to Kansas City, Tony Gizzo, to put in his own man, Binaggio, as county leader. Milligan’s brother Tuck was counsel for Joe de Luca, a Mafia boss and convicted dope smuggler, during and after his brother’s term as United States attorney. Milligan prosecuted few Sicilian hoodlums. T-men demanded 20 years for De Luca. Milligan’s office asked for only 3 for his brother’s client; he was sprung shortly thereafter and the stool pigeon who convicted him was murdered. We looked up the official record and that is so.
As new Democratic leader of the President’s home county, Binaggio had great influence. Naturally, the President wanted to carry his own state in local and federal elections, so he had to work through his home organization. The presence in it of people like Binaggio and Gizzo may have turned his stomach, but that was politics.
We have explained that the Big Mob does not operate directly in Washington on the street and sewer levels, such enterprises being franchised out to locals. The Syndicate does do business in the District in connection with its legitimate affairs and some of its larger sub-rosa undertakings. In the latter category are black-marketing, the sale and resale of government surplus, padding of war contracts, etc. The boys had an office in the Thomas Circle Building during World War II, in which they dished out war contracts. One day a man was killed there, but so great was their influence that no record was made on the police blotter. The newspapers still know nothing about it.
A couple of hotels in Washington are owned by interests known to be backed by underworld coin. Many chain stores owned by mob money have branches there. Money of “Lepke” Buchalter, executed head of Murder, Inc., is in Jarwood’s men’s clothing store, across the street from the Department of Justice. The history of this chain makes a human interest story.
When Lepke surrendered, to be turned over to J. Edgar Hoover, he understood the boys put in a “fix” so he would be tried on federal charges and not turned over to Brooklyn’s crusading District Attorney, Bill O’Dwyer, on the Murder, Inc., rap, which meant the chair in Sing Sing.
But Hoover would have nothing to do with such a deal, and gave him up to New York State. Lepke was convicted of first-degree murder. He knew he had been railroaded by the Mafia, which had wanted to get rid of its Jewish partner. He threatened to blow the whistle, and was promised leniency if he would talk. His wife, an attractive brunette, went to see him in his cell and told him her life had been threatened, she would be croaked if he spilled. That was not so. Lepke loved her, so he went to the hot seat with his lips sealed to protect her.
Most of his illegal profits had been stashed away in secret safe deposit vaults. He told her where they were. While Lepke was in the death-chamber, his wife was often seen with Arthur Jawitz, a slick-looking young guy, who had attracted the attention of the Feds when they were looking for Lepke, whose bed he was keeping warm.