The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-06-04
Graft and Gangsters

BY HARRY CANNES

of graft against the Walker administration. The
charges were unceremoniously dropped The
threats of Kerrigan worked and a truce was
patched up between the grafterS in the Tam
many machine.
In May 1881, new revelations of wholesale
graft in the Department of Schools we're
brought to light. One little instance was the
purchase of lot by the Department of Schools
for the sum of $240,604 virtually owned by John
H McCooey, Associate Superintendent of
Schools. The amount of graft involved in this
deal can be judged from the fact that few
years before McCooey sold the lot which he
owned to the Department of Public Schools it
could have been had for $4,000 (NewYorkWorld-
Telegram, Wed, May g. 1881, p. D. Somebody
grated at least $213, 6o4
Framing Girls
While the frame-ups of girls on charges of
prostitution exposed under Police Commits
sioner Mulrooneys regime, they extended back
into the regime of Grover Whalen, manager for
the Wanamaker stores of New York where pros
titutes created by the low wages paid
Chile Acuna who did lot of the framing
said he told Whalen about it frequently
Grover Whalen was made Police Commits
sioner to hide the Rothstein scandal Before
his death, Arnold Rothstein was the AL Capone
OF New York While Capone deals mainly in
booze, murders and vote stealing for the DO
litical parties Rothstein's business was more
widespread. He engineered a 100000 bond
robbery; he bribed policemen; pedded DOPE
bought judges, and broke strikes Rothstein
paid $4,000 to Judge WHALE, though after
Rothstein's death, Judge Whales connection
with nearly every other gangster in New York
was exposed.
Rothstein was fatally shot in the Park Cen
1horA
ly afterwards in a hospital In Rothsteins
safety deposit box there were found $7oOo,ooo
worth of dope and a bundle of papers The
documents later disappeared. They we're the
records of the criminal transactions between
Rothstein and the leading politicians and cap
italists of New York City. The murderer of
RothStein was known to Tammany Hall, and
Grover Whalen, with his respectable" front, his
relations with the upper strata Of New York's
society, assumed leadership in the police de-
partment to cover up the disappearance of the
RothStein documents and to gloss over the fail
ure to solve" the Rothsten murder
While Whalen couldn't produce the missing
papers, he readily found some forged documents
against the Communist Party and the Soviet
Union These forged documents formed the
basis for the creation of the Fish Committee
by Congress to investigate Red activities" in
the United States Whalen too, started vici-
GUS drive against the militant workers to hide
his gangster dealings, his vice frame-upes. The
economic crisis had come on, and millions were
thrown on the streets to starve. During the
struggle for bread and against wage cuts, Wha-
lens cossacks murdered three revolutionary
workers. Steve Katovis; the Negro unemployed
worker, Alfred Levi; and Gonzalo Gonzalez
Thousands of others were beaten up and jailed
The leaders Of the March 6 unemployed dele
cation were railroaded to Jail by order Of Walker
and Whalen, by Tammany judges of the type
who buy their jobs from the Tammany political
bosses.
When William z. Foster, Israel Amter, Robert
Minor, and Harry Raymond were sent to wei
fare Island for six months for leading the de-
inonstration of 10000 unemployed in New York
demanding "Work or Wages" they found
strange company on their prison island. There,
in palatial cell, was one of the leading figures
in the New York City government, Mr.. Con-
molly, formerly borough president Of Queens.
That Mr. Connolly ever got to Welfare Island
for a year was all mistake. His sin was not
that he stole $15,000000 through contracts for
city sewers but because he had not learned
all the tricks of Tammany Hall in doing it.
Then too he was one of the rare sacrifices that
the modern grating capitalist politicians must
make to protect the hundreds Of millions OF
graft and to mslead the workers as to the real
capitalist base of grating
(To be continued