Indianapolis Times, Volume 38, Number 113, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 August 1926 — Page 7

AUG. 17, 1926

UNDERWORLD GRIP . ON y. S. POLITICS BARED IN INQUIRY Thugs, Gunman, Bootleggers Control Elections in Big Cities. By N. D. Cocliran Timet Stall Corresoondent WASHINGTON, Aug. 17— Had the Reed slush fund committee not been confined to political practices in the election of United States Senators it would have shown up as intimate a relation between machine politics and crime as it did show between machine politics and pubic utilities. Enough was shown, however, to enable one to figure out something of the part the underworld plays in practical politics. It was shown that in certain wards have political bosses who absolutely dominated the politics of the ward. Most of the wards have their individual bosses, although their power is not so great in residential wards where there are few blind tigers, cagarets, night clubs, gambling joints and disorderly resorts. Need Protection Tbe wards where vice and crime are most profitable, is where the / ward boss has the most power. lie •can tax bootleggers, gamblers and keepers of disreputable resorts and ' collect liberal contributions to campaign funds. These businesses are illegal. They cannot operate long without protection. It can be set down as an absolute fact that wherever pickpockets ply their trade some officer of the law is getting the money. The same is true of gamblers, bootleggers and keepers of disorderly resorts. Politics to Blame The police could put any of them out of business if they wanted to or were permitted to. Too often in American cities the police force protects criminals, instead of protecting the public upon whom the criminals prey. Let's suppose a case. Suppose that in any big American city the vote between Democrats and Republicans is close. The criminal's vote 'counts as much as the law-abiding citizen's. But the criminal will register and vote, while many of the socalled respectable element won’t. Any gambler, bootlegger, hijacker or keeper of a blind pig or a shady resort can and does influence more votes than the average respectable citizen. The average respectable citizen is a dummy politically. But the underworld denizen is an independent voter. He knows little about political issues and cares less. He uses such political influence as he has, much as Sam Insull of Chicago, and all over, uses such influence and money as he gets from controlling nearly a billion dollars’ Worth of public utilities. That is, he uses i his political influence to protect his own selfish interests —to feather his own nest. Politicians Know It Politicians know the police have great influence in the underworld, that the police can pull gambling joints, pinch bootleggers and raid disreputable resorts. Or they can refrain. Suppose then that a political machine in any city controls the mayor, the police department, the county prosecutor or state's attorney, the sheriff, the board of assessors and the tax board of review. Any ward boss, working with the machine, is then in position to have -much influence with all branches of government. He can go to tbe prosecuting attorney and, except in flagrant cases, protect underworld denizens. Often he can save criminals from hidJctment and prosecution; or help them to make a getaway by fixing their bond. Often he can get the police to “lay off’’ of some of his pet lawbreakers, and thus “protect” them in their violation of the law. Collection Easy And so long as he protects violators of the law he can not only collect money from them regularly, but he can rely upon their support at primaries and elections. Nor do these protected denizens of the underworld care whether their protector Is a Republican or a Democrat.

■So long as this ward boss. In an underworld ward, can deliver the vote of his ward to the party organization in power he is in a position to demand and receive jobs and favors for his followers and protection for such of the underworld characters as can deliver votes. Elect as They Please So it isn’t strange that in some wards in Chicago gunmen, thugs, exconvicts and criminally generally can b<=- appointed judges and clerks of election and stuff ballot boxes and count ballots as they please. Now, take the so-called respectable residential wards. If the political machine in power controls the taxing machinery, including, as in Chicago. the board of assessors and the board of rfeview, every big property holder is a: the mercy of the political machine. That’s what makes cowards of business men who would really like to have good government, but who wouldn’t mind dodging some taxes and who, certainly, don’t want to be overtaxed. If You Kick— If a wealthy business man takes a virtuous notion to try to clean out the gang in the interest of clean politics, he may be summoned before the taxing politicians and have a hundred thousand or so added to

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the value of his factory or office building, or a few thousand added onto his residence. Suppose he is a large consumer of coal and the boss of the political machine is interested in the coal business. What is he going to do if the head of the board of review makes a pleasant call on him and asks for his coal business? And what is he going to do about it if the boss of the machine shortweighs him on coal? What chance has the average citizen who buys gas. electricity and street car rides if the head of the gas, electric and street railway companies is the biggest contributor to the political machine that controls the city council and the State board that regulates rates and competition? And What chance has a fearless editor like Don Mellett, late editor of the Canton News, to protect the people of his community and save his own life when he makes a fight for honest government and attacks the criminal underworld? Chicago is rotten. Only recently Liberty magazine has published photographs of the State's attorney, judges and a United States Senator sitting at a banquet given either for or by gunmen of the underworld. But Chicago isn't the only community in the United States where government is rotten because of the intimate relation between machine politics, public utilities, crooked big business and vice and crime. There a-e others. There was an unholy alliance between politics and the saloon In pre-prohibition days, but it was nothing as compared with the relation between politics and bootleggers and the criminal underworld c-f today. No Fanciful Picture This is no fanciful picture. It is no figment of the imagination. I sat through every session of the Reed senatorial committee in Chicago. I listened to the testimony of Stfcte, county, city and ward bosses. I knew something of the evidence that Senator Reed was trying to draw out when Sam Insull, head of almost a billion dollars’ worth of public utilities, and State’s Attorney Robert Crowe refused to answer Reed's questions about how much

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money was contributed to the CroweBarrett Republican machine in Chicago and Cook County. Every newspaper correspondent who attended those hearings knew what Senator Reed was trying to uncover for the information of the people of this country. They knew he wanted to bring out who put up the money not only to help make Frank L. Smith the Republican nominee for United States Senator in Illinois, but that he wanted to uncover who put up the money to try to put into power the political machine that is getting support from vice nnd crime as well as from public utilities in the second largest city In the United States. One thing was made clear, and that is that If any headway is to be made against vice, crime and graft in American cities there must be an absolute divorcement of politics from vice and crime. So long as law violators support politics they will be protected by politicians. ANSWER IS DISPUTED Times Reader Says Only 8,10 Needed for 100 Square Feet. A J. Koesters, 4110 Park Ave., takes exception to the answer of the Times Washington Bureau to the question: How many shingles are there in a bundle? How many shingles are required to cover 100 square feet? The answer, printed Aug. 13, said; "There are two sizes of bundles. Some contain 200 shingles and others 250. One thousand shingles with a four inch lap will cover 100 square feet.’’ Koesters in a letter to the Times says: “Shingles are more generally laid 5 inches to the weather than 4 inches. It would take four bundles of 200 each or 800 shingles 16 inches laid 5 inches to cover a square, whereas five bundles of same or four bundles of the 250 pack making 1,000 shingles would cover 128 i square feet. Eight hundred shingles i 18 inches laid 5*4 inches to the! weather would also cover 100 square feet, whereas 1.000 would cover 140, square feet. One thousand of 16-1 inch shingles laid 4 inches to the; weather should cover 102 square feet.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

LinS SUSPENSION FROM ADAIR FIRM ... ' / Schortemeier Exonerates Realty Company. Exonerating the Adair Realty and Trust Company of Atlanta, Ga-. of any fraud in connection with the firm s activity in Indiana, Secretary of State Frederick E. Schortemeier today lifted the suspension imposed June 15, when the State Chamber of Commerce brought serious charges. Schortemeier, at the same time, cleared the State chamber of the hint that ulterior motive* prompted rtie filing of the charges. Informants of the State chamber, however, were criticised for not backing up the charges when a formal hearing was held. Certain statements made by the Adair company in regard to Its Florida projects were branded by Schortemeier as “inaccurate.” He cautioned the southern firm against overenthusiasm in Its advertising. On the basis of an inquiry made by State Securities Commissioner David H. Jennings, the Adair company was found sound and responsible and well able to meet all its liabilities. Schortemeier ordered the Adair

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firm to clear its advertising of all inaccuracies before attempting to do business in Indiana. COURTROOM FIXED UP Prisoners Will Face Judge In Newly Decorated Chamber. When Criminal Court convenes on Sept. 6, Labor ■day, visitors will discover the huge room entirely washed, painted and varnished. A corps of workers are now busy painting the ceiling and balcony. The walls were painted last spring. TJje artistic Italian paintings which adorned the ceiling for many years have disappeared. “I hated to see that piece of art destroyed, but what Is art when sanitation is concerned, especially in a room of this kind,” said Criminal Judge Tames A. Collins. The room will he .n readiness by next Monday when the annual county teachers' institute is held there, it was said. PHONE BUY ANNOUNCED Purchase of the Steuben County Telephone Company by the Indiana Telephone Securities Corporation has been announced. The Steuben County concern, which operates In Angola and surrounding territory, is appraised at more than $300,000. Max F. Hosea of Indianapolis is president of the purchasing concern. AM USEM ENTS ~ WrJinic'L JACK PITZER’S ORCHESTRA HAFTER & PAUL LAWTON GABY DU VALLE ROGERS & GAMBLE McGREEVY ?. JEFFRIES FOUR READINGS

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REVIVE PROPOSAL TO BAN TOILERS Budget for 1927 and Speedway City Cases Up. Delving into cobwebby files of the past, majority faction city councilmen plan to pursue again an ordinance preventing interurban companies from using trailers through city streets in daylight hours at a special meeting Wednesday night. Councilmen also expect to receive the 1927 budget from City Controller William C. Buser and there is possibility that the ordinance to annex Speedway City, submitted at regular meeting Monday night, will be considered. Meanwhile, a special committee, composed, with one exception, of majority faction members, is considering another request for a temporary loan of $350,000, presented by Buser. Councilmen registered contempt for the city administration by strik-

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ing from the files an ordinance to charge a fee of $1 for every dog taken from the city\ pound, proposed to augment dilapidated finances of that institution. GET -REINFORCEMENTS Expert's Wfl! Be Added to Staff Battling Com Borer. Several experts are to be added to the staff of scouts working under State Entomologist Frank N. Wallace in the corn borer infested die. trict of northeastern Indiana, it was reported today. Wallace and his assistants, together with a group of sixteen Federal workers discovered the borer in ten townships in the far corner of the State. As soon as the exact extent of the borer’s pillaging of corn fields can be determined, an experimental laboratory will be established. Exporting of corn from the infested area will be forbidden. JUNIOR COLLEGES FAVORED The movement to have the Legislature enact laws authorizing establishment of junior colleges in Indiana cities financially able to support them will be backed by L. C. Ward, superintendent of Ft. Wayne

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schools. Ward, a member of State board of education, will bring the matter before the board's legislative committee, he said.

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