Washington Confidential 27 – Mortimer · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 27Part 2 · LUCKY NUMBERS
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 27
Part 2 · LUCKY NUMBERS
MortimerEnglish
The first thing a Congressional investigating committee gets, the sine qua non, is an appropriation. The next is a sheaf of time-tables. Then comes the joyful junketing-time to remote places--remote from the capital and remote from the subject.
The Kefauver committee made the grand tour--California and Florida, Chicago and New York, about everything but Yellowstone Park. Its golden fleece was gambling. They could have cleaned up their quest for about $1.60 on a taxi meter.
All the evidence, all the interstate involvements and local conditions which are the particular province of Congress, they could find in Washington. We did. All gambling in the capital is interstate because it is inseparable from its lines into and out of Maryland and Virginia.
We outlined the setup of the nationwide underworld Syndicate. We brought it to the District line. At that point the on-the-spot gamblers take over.
They have been mentioned as Emmitt Warring, king of Georgetown; Attilio Acalotti, “mayor” of Dupont Circle; Sam Beard and his partner Gary Quinn, and the Sussman brothers. Of money gouged from suckers, 90 per cent clears through them, and “Black Jack” Kelleher, Frank Erickson’s local observer.
A curious situation here is that “policy” or “numbers” gets a bigger play than bookmaking. The reverse is true almost everywhere else. The reason ascribed by the cognoscenti is that while everyone earns a fairly good living, few have enough surplus cash for important horse betting. But numbers tickets can be bought for from one cent up. That game is far more profitable for the operators, too. Bookmakers can’t do much better than putting a ceiling on track odds. They must follow the mutuels, though they stop at a 20-to-1 payoff. Bookies who can’t lay off enough often lose on a day.
The winning numbers pay only 600 to 1, whereas 999 numbers are drawn, and the draw can be fixed.
In most towns, the numbers play is predominantly by Negroes. In Washington it is general, with white government employes in the majority. The policy slips are usually sold by colored runners, often messengers and elevator boys in government buildings. The salesman withholds 25 per cent of the gross. Average booking is $50 a day.
The take from the numbers, in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, is deposited in the branch of the Hamilton Bank at 20th and Pennsylvania Avenue, in the Foggy Bottom section. The Congressional committee investigating local crime ascertained that this bank did not report the large deposits of small coins. The deposits are withdrawn each day and transferred to Maryland, where local representatives of the Syndicate divide the receipts and send its cut to the Mafia in New York.
The sale of numbers is so widespread, the police can make only token arrests. Invariably, when the peddler, usually a Negro, is locked up, a representative of a bonding outfit appears at once and posts bail. Next day a member of the Charlie Ford law firm appears in court. Several defendants testified the lawyers paid their fines. The operation will be described in detail later.
Numbers sellers are picked up all over the town, and they are not coy. For instance, police got a squeal that two men were selling policy slips from an auto parked in the 1200 block of 7th Street, NW. Cops questioned them and numbers slips “just rolled out of a paper bag on the car floor.” The prisoners were very “surprised,” the more so when 200 numbers books were found in the car’s trunk.
Vice squad dicks stopped in to get a shine at 209 K Street NW. They saw numbers lying on a chair next to two men. When they searched them they found many more in their possession.
Policy is a lottery. Under federal law, that is a felony. But the only way to cut in on the racket is to get tough. Twenty-five-dollar fines, paid by lawyers reimbursed by the bosses, are no deterrent. But Judge Thomas D. Quinn handcuffed the police even on that. He served notice on the U. S. Attorney’s office that he “will not tolerate” prosecutors delaying court action on gambling cases until they can get grand jury indictments.
According to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the government is within its rights requesting these continuances, but Curtis P. Mitchell, an attorney for some arrested as gamblers, alleged the civil rights of numbers suspects were being disregarded.
Judge Edward M. Curran spiked the government’s case when it attempted to clean up gambling in Thomas Circle. Though one defendant pleaded guilty to operation of a lottery, Judge Curran ruled police did not have enough “probable cause” to arrest the others, who were admittedly in possession of numbers slips.
Washington judges openly acknowledge the fact that the fines they impose are paid by the bosses.
Judge Henry A. Schweinhaut, of the United States District Court, frivolously presented a numbers operator named “Lemon” a chance to prove there is honor in Washington’s gaming fraternity.
He asked him to come forward and provide the $300 fine for an aged Negro who was convicted before him of taking numbers bets.
“Lemon put up bond for the defendant. Maybe Lemon will pay the fine,” said the District Solomon. “I’ll give him a chance to prove his loyalty to an old employe.”
Defense Attorney Mitchell, who has figured in these pages before, quickly disillusioned His Honor. “As a practical matter, a numbers backer wouldn’t be apt to pay a $300 fine for a man who only had a three-dollar-a-day numbers book,” he explained.
But the judge winked and said, “If Lemon doesn’t pay, it might get around that he will let one of his men stay in jail. It might reduce his prestige in the fraternity.”
Did we hear someone talking about legalized and licensed gambling? This is it, with a bow from the U. S. District Court.
In recent years the top rulers of the netherworld have disassociated themselves as much as possible from street-level vice and crime, preferring to remain on the sidelines, where their take comes in clean.
The situation in Washington is a pattern and example for the rest of the country, because, for obvious reasons, the tygoons have preferred to have no direct dealings with law-breaking in the nation’s capital.
The method whereby the take from policy, Washington’s chief form of gambling, goes upstairs is unique and ingenious, the product of brilliant legal scheming.
First of all, each local numbers bank is, for the records, completely independent. Its operator, who employs the runners who actually sell the lottery tickets, is supposed to be completely unaffiliated, and it would take a smarter guy than any government lawyer to prove him otherwise.
In the beginning, most of the local banks were really unaffiliated. Since then, on occasion, some have tried to remain that way. This is what happens when they do: The Big Mob sends in “customers” to bet a certain number; then, through its ability to control the daily winning number, that number comes up and the banker goes broke.
But if he wants to play ball, they sell him an “insurance policy” which guarantees him from undue loss--which is prevented by the control of the winning number. His daily premium is the payoff money.
The funniest one happened when a policy salesman asked police to lock him up because one of his clients had a $60 hit which the runner couldn’t pay off--having lost the money playing the numbers. It came about when a cop admonished Lawrence Fields, obviously drunk, to quiet down. Fields begged to be arrested on the numbers charge. The cop asked Fields whether he realized the seriousness of what he was saying. Fields replied, “Nothing will happen. My boss pays protection.”
The boss was identified in court as Sam Beard. Beard claims he is in the pickle business, but he once served 53 months in jail for gambling and 13 months for tax evasion. Fields got 90 days. His client is waiting outside the District jail.
But don’t think bookmaking is a peanut industry either. Local authorities estimate the take of bookmakers within the District at $100,000,000 a year--not gross business, but net profits.
Horse money goes to Prince Georges, Maryland, as already described. Snags Lewis, the wire service representative, transmits the payoff and profits to New York and New Jersey.
Though Bernice Franklin, former sweetheart of Attilio Acalotti, testified in federal court that at least three members of the Metropolitan Police were paid off by gamblers in her presence, Washington authorities never show any enthusiasm toward investigating charges of corruption against cops.
When District Commissioner John Russell Young testified recently before a special grand jury probing Washington gambling, he was not asked about the possibility of bribes being paid by the gamblers. Assistant U. S. Attorney John W. Fihelly, conducting the inquiry, left it flat and started on “several weeks vacation.”
You can freely make a bet on a horse in almost any place in Washington except a church--with elevator boys in government buildings, at corner cigar and drug stores, lunch stands and bellboys. If you still can’t find a place, the ingenuity of the Washington bookmaker will solve your problem. For instance, the police said they broke the biggest gambling brokerage ever operated in Washington with the arrest of two men in a “doctor’s office,” on California Avenue, N.W. Police said one of the men they arrested was a physician. He told them he could make more money with betting slips than with prescriptions.
“There wasn’t even a band-aid in the place.” But there were the following items:
Betting slips; a looseleaf notebook which appeared to be a gambling broker’s record, containing $75,000 in IOU’s from all over the country; two promissory notes totaling $35,000; $134 in cash, an expensive radio, and a clock with a sweep second-hand. While police went through the place the phone rang. A voice on the other end “started to give me hell for a bum steer, saying the odds had dropped to 8 to 5,” Sergt. James Roche said.
Police Lt. David McCutcheon told the District license board that a gambler paid the proprietors of Filo’s restaurant, 1700-A 9th Street, NW, $200 a month for the concession to take bets there. At this writing Filo’s is still in business.
During the seasons, Washington gamblers make book on baseball, football, basketball and hockey. Walter Lephfew and Skylar Wilson were arrested this year in what is described as a $2,000,000 football lottery.
We placed bets with bookies who hang out in the G & W Lunch Room, 17th and L.
Much of the local gambling is controlled by Greeks who operate in restaurants and private clubs.
We saw gambling going on openly on the second floor of a building on the northwest corner of 9th and H; also in the Greek restaurant on the second floor of 9th and G.
A dice and horse room was being operated over the Bazaar restaurant, at 17th and L. Say that Steve Akaris sent you. That’s how we got in.
You can find roulette in a place at 5th and G., also over a restaurant in the 100 block of Vermont Avenue.
Don’t think gambling doesn’t account for plenty of violence in the District.
On recommendation of the District license board, the commissioners turned down a police request that they revoke a billiard hall license of William G. Heflin. Earlier in the year, Joseph H. “Big Joe” Scheve, a convicted gambler, was fatally shot there. Before that, James T. Skeens shot Edward Ryan in the leg there. Police charged the billiard hall was frequented by criminals. We saw bookmakers taking bets there.
A 25-year-old fireman with twenty pairs of crooked dice in his pocket was found stabbed to death in an alley as an aftermath of a crap game in which 15 persons participated. Every die was without 1, 3 and 5, making it impossible to toss a 7. The dice were of all sizes and colors, “suitable for almost any occasion.”
One-armed bandits are banned by District and by the new Federal law. However, $100 federal stamps have been purchased for 50 such machines, operating at this writing in the city of Washington. Those in officers’ service clubs have since been removed, but many operated brazenly in places open to the public.
Pinball machines, illegal in most big cities, especially in New York, and not permitted in the Virginia counties across the Potomac, are a popular indoor sport in Washington. They are found in restaurants, drugstores, bottle clubs and playlands. Many are used as gambling devices. The federal tax of $10 on each has been paid for 1263.
Federal records show 15,000 one-armed bandits and gambling devices registered for Maryland, of which 5,000 are in the District suburbs.
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.
