Most slot machines are manufactured in Chicago. Those destined for areas in D.C. or nearby, where they are against the law, were shipped to wholesalers in Danville, Va., then distributed sub rosa to Washington and Baltimore.
Payoffs are pretty lousy.
The new Federal slot machine law is a laugh. It was dreamed up in an effort to stave off Kefauver’s investigation.
The only Senator who really fought it came from Nevada, where the one-armed bandits are legal, and into which, under the new Federal law, they can be imported freely. Nevada had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
The same Senator fought contempt citations against recalcitrant Kefauver witnesses, proving, to Estes’ surprise, what we had told him about Democratic-underworld alliances.
The joker in any statute forbidding the interstate transportation of slot machines is they are manufactured from standard and interchangeable parts which can be assembled anywhere by any competent mechanic. Instead of shipping the finished device, the Costello interests will merely send the parts to local distributors who will put them together--and save freight costs.
The underworld’s Washington representatives actually lobbied for the passage of the bill, figuring that its adoption would look like a solid accomplishment to the public, and take the “heat” off other monkey business.
Attorney General McGrath and the New Deal liberals who plugged for the measure had another reason. They hoped it would put the F.B.I. on the spot. Its enforcement being impossible, Hoover and his G-men would take the blame--either that or the F.B.I. would have to hire thousands of fly-cops and become a new, super Prohibition unit, exposed to wholesale graft and bribery, which would please the Reds and the crooks.
We don’t think gambling will ever be eliminated. We don’t think the public wants it to be. It is a human appetite, like sex and liquor, and no sumptuary legislation can wipe it out. But gambling corrupts law enforcement officers. While wagering is illegal and undercover, this is inevitable. When cops take bribes from bookmakers they feel they do no essential harm. But it’s a start and soon they will sell out to anyone.
As to the cure, no two agree. Even your authors have divided opinions. One believes in legalizing gambling, the other points out Nevada, where it is legal, as the horrible example. There the same mobsters control it and law enforcement officers are bought up as usual.
28. IT’S A CRIME
No thanks is due United States Attorney George Morris Fay for the fact that figures and information regarding the local wave of crime are still available.
Shortly after he took office, in 1946, Fay rewrote the Constitution and closed off the court files from inspection by the press on felony cases. Not satisfied, last year he tightened up in Municipal Court, introducing a form of censorship for newsmen trying to check facts.
But we finagled some figures:
Per capita computations show Washington recorded one murder for every 25,555 persons in 1949. But Chicago, generally conceded the gunmen’s playground, had one murder for every 26,902. Washington jumped to one for every 11,000 in 1950.
On the basis of population, Washington led 16 cities of 500,000 or more in aggravated (felonious) assaults during the first six months of 1950; and it was second only to Chicago in the _total_ number of such cases. Washington had 1,911, exceeded only by Chicago’s 2,184, and Chicago is five times as large as Washington!
Though crime in Washington decreased slightly in 1950, as compared to 1949, the District is high among the leaders, per capita and in total number of offenses, in every major classification.
Crime has always been a popular pastime here. It increased so alarmingly during the first years of the New Deal that a group of public-spirited citizens formed the Washington Criminal Justice Association in 1936 to help combat it.
The Attorney General in that year called Washington “the crime capital of the world.” The backers hoped for a virile, hard-hitting body, similar to the Chicago Crime Commission, which under Virgil Peterson, its executive director, has done so much to spotlight the workings of the underworld there, or like Danny Sullivan’s Greater Miami Commission.
The original organizers of the Washington association included a number of do-gooders, such as Eugene Meyer, who bars the identification of Negroes in his paper. The body soon found itself struggling without sufficient funds. It is now supported by the United Community Services, which allots it only enough to pay for a director, an assistant and a secretary. The able director, Edward J. Flynn, is a competent, imaginative individual, handcuffed by lack of funds and public disinterest. He can do little more than keep a record of crimes as they occur, compile statistics and offer recommendations. They are good, but no one wants them.
The situation has gotten worse rather than better since the Attorney General castigated the city. In 1936 there were only about 7,000 serious crimes. The number dropped to about 4,000 in 1944. But by last year it had skyrocketed to 13,000. It is now slightly lower.
Washington is still the crime capital.
In other chapters we touch briefly on the so-called “organized” crimes--prostitution, gambling, and narcotics. This chapter deals mainly with offenses of violence and those against property, which are usually regarded as unorganized.
But director Flynn agrees with your authors that, with the exception of private crimes of passion, occasional robberies by hungry men and juvenile delinquency, all crime is now organized to a degree. Flynn said:
“Highly organized criminal groups, carrying out skillfully planned operations, exist in Washington.”
The police disagree with him, naturally. But the record is clear for any observer who follows the entire procedure through, from commission to arrest, bail-bonding and arraignment. The combine appears in the fencing of the loot. Burglars in Washington have a union to which they contribute a percentage of their take in return for bail when arrested, legal representation and fixes where possible. No professional burglars operate until they make arrangements in advance for disposition of their stolen goods, and, thereafter, the other services. Non-members of the union cannot secure bail at any price and are denied the services of the top criminal lawyers.
Why has the nation’s capital more crime than other cities? Flynn says it is indicative of community lethargy. He thinks that is not unique in the District, but is equally true in every city. If that is so, there must be a special reason why Washington is more lawless.
Others blame it on the lack of home rule and local government. Yet every investigation and survey elsewhere shows that corrupt municipal city hall gangs are the protectors of vice and crime. The high rates in Washington cannot be blamed on the foreign-born, because only six percent of the population is non-native. As we showed earlier, Negroes commit most of the crime. But there are Negro criminals in other large cities, especially in New York and Chicago, where they do likewise. Why then are Washington’s Negroes even more felonious?
There is no doubt that Washington is a cesspool of iniquity and a Utopia for criminals. The setup of the local government and the calibre of the men who enforce its laws and sit on its benches are partly responsible. Archaic and often ridiculous laws and regulations are a contributing factor.
For instance, guns are easy to buy in second-hand stores. There is no law requiring a license to keep a gun in a home. That forbidding the carrying of one in a car is a dead letter. It is a felony to carry a concealed weapon on the person without a license, but there are few arrests and fewer convictions for this, because the District courts and prosecutor feel it is no offense to carry an unloaded weapon, even if a clip of cartridges is in the same pocket. An expert could load the gun without removing it from his pocket.
The fantastic interpretation of laws by the U. S. Attorney and the federal courts has handcuffed the cops in their efforts to clean the town.
Not long ago a Negro was arrested for kicking and assaulting another man in a bus station. Though police found an unlicensed pistol on the prisoner’s person, and bullets in another pocket, the U. S. Attorney refused to prosecute for either the assault or concealed weapon. When queried, a representative of his office said it was obvious the colored man was a nice guy, because he didn’t load his gun and shoot his victim, who lay helpless on the floor. The prisoner had a record. When asked at a later date whether, in view of all the circumstances since developed, the D.A.’s office would prosecute, the spokesman said, “No. No judge will convict a colored man here for a minor offense like that.”
The federal judges are lenient because they are federal judges. Of the 308 with life appointments throughout the United States, 224 are Democrats. During the first 17 years of the Roosevelt-Truman administrations, 289 judges were given such appointments, of whom 272 were Democrats. The same ratio shows up in the District of Columbia. The Democratic judges are the choices and flunkies of corrupt city machines or of unions, left-wingers and fellow-travelers’ organizations. The city bosses’ men are lenient to law-breakers because their masters order them to be so. The radicals’ nominees seldom throw the book at a defendant, because Commies, pinkos and phony progressives hate cops, refer to them as cossacks.