Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1912-08-02
ROSE SAYS NEW YORK POLICE
COLLECTED FROM RESORTS
$2,4o0OOO YEARLY.
ALL DIVIDED, HE AYERS
Four Men High Up in Department
Shared !t-Becker Said He Hand
led $1,000 Every
Year.

graft collected by high police officials
in New York city from gambling
houses and other illegal resorts has
amounted within the last year to ST.
100000 are in the hands of District At
torney Whitman.
The statements were made to the
district attorney by Bald" Jack Rose,
self-accused graft collector for Police
Lieutenant Charles Becker, head OF
the strong arm squad" who began
his second day of incarceration in the
Tombs prison as an alleged instigator
of the murder of Herman Rosenthal,
gambler.
This annual yield of $2,400,000 pro-
lection money was equally divided, &C
cording to the story told by Rose,
among four high officials of the police
department, one of them being Beck
er, and from other evidence the dis
trict attorney has collected he has rea-
son to suspect that each 100000 was
further distributed. In other words,
there were four separate systems or
bureaus of graft collection, each heal
ed by high police official.
Mr.. Whitman, it was learned, has
the names of the other three police
officials whom Rose has named and
his further efforts in what now is the
most sensational police exposure that
New York has ever seen will be d.
rected toward Strengthening the evil
dence which points against them. One
of the officials named, it was learned,
holds a position at headquarters and
is, in a strict sense a Gillian employee
The name of a former prominent
city official has been brought to the at
tention of the district attorney as hav-
ing been closely connected with the
graft system, but it was learned that
the evidence thus far obtained against
hi mis- not of tangible nature. The
evidence, however, is being closely fol-
lowed by the detectives in the employ
of the district tttorney.
1t also became known that if Lieu
tenant Becker will tell all he knows
not only in respect to his own alleged
completely in the murder, but will
unfold the inner workings of the graft
system, insofar as it may involve the
"men higher up" no effort will be
made to enforce the exterme penalty
for the crime of which he now stands
accused-the murder of Rosenthal-
but he will be granted leniency on
that condition only.
The alleged fact of the $2,400,000
graft fund was told to him by Beck
er, Rose said in sworn statement.
Becker, he said, told him that he
handled 100000 year and that equal
amounts were handled by three other
officers. This, he said, came in collec-
lions from gambling houses, pool
rooms, houses of ill-repute, and the
like.
Rose said he had collected gambling
graft for Becker for months and he
promised the district attorney that he
would obtain for him the rates paid
by gambling houses, make tabulation
of what these receipts amounted to
monthly and yeafly, and how the
money was handled.
That there were other collectors be-
side Rose is the assumption OF the dis
trict attorney, who proposes to Men-
tify them.
Becker told me that he was the
prince of the police department" Rose
said. "He paid me liberaly out Of
my collections, but I never was able
to keep what got. was fool gam
bier and gambled it all away.
Part of the business between the
gamblers and the police, the district
attorney was told, was boldly done
through checks, although his efforts
to secure evidence in this form have
proved fruitless.
"Bridgie" Weber, the gambling
house keeper who has also confessed
and whose story largely resulted in
the arrest of Becker, promised Mr..
Whitman, it was learned, to corrobo-
rate Roses statement in regard to the
collections. Incidentally, Weber adj
$4,000 was the sum which he received
to pay the men who actually fired the
shots which killed Rosenthal.
In regard to the murder itself, Rose
stated to Mr.. Whitman that the reason
why it was done so openly and that
no effort made to cover the mum.
Der of the big gray murder car as it
drove up to the Hotel Metropole to
get Rosenthal, was that Becker was
relied upon for protection.