The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-06-11
Graft and Gangsters
BY HARRY CANNES

regime. forced the workers to sign petitions for
the election of Mayor Murphy. Buckley himself
had worked for the Ford Motor Co. as a social
worker" that is, as a stool-pigeon who went to
the workers homes to see if they we're radical
Mayor Murphy promised to find and prose-
cute the murderers Of Buckley. But who were
the murderers? 1t was very clear to everyone
in Detroit that the job had been engineered by
Mayor Bowles and Police Commissioner Wilcox
They approved openly of killing rival gangsters
Now how did Murphy attempt to solve the muir
der? First he issued warrants for two Italian
gangsters, A. Livechi and t. Pizzano Instead
of directing the fire against the real killers,
Murphy turned the whole campaign into an at
tack on the foreign born workers of Detroit.
He used the occasion of the arrest Of Lveccm
and Pizzano as an excuse to discharge all for
eign-born workers employed by the city. On Feb
ruary 25, 1880, he ordered all torelgn-born Ia
borers dismissed. This was how Murphy was
going to solve" the unemployment problem and
to revenge the murder of Buckley.
In october, $780, Murphy called grand jury
together to Investigate" the Buckley murder.
We have already seen what happened to the
grand jury investigation in Chicago OF police
graft under the Thompson Cermak regime. The
same thing happened in Detroit. The grand
Jury proceedings brought out piles of evidence
gangsters and for this reason it was ended
without any solution of the Buckley murder
However, we get few interesting sidelights rom
The investigation, though most of it was kept
secret.
One of the witnesses a convicted crook by the
name of Andrews, told of the connection of the
policea department with kidnappers. Here are
extracts from his testimony
when l walked the street certain officer
always approached me and said give me fifty
dollars And had to give it to him, or go to
Jail whether he had anything on me or not.
zone (police officer was sore at the other, be-
cause he thought he is taking the most of the
underworld graft and they had fist fight over
it in AL Thorpes saloon.
Il swear that one of the officials of the police
department told me once when / did not give
him graft--'why don't you pull off some Job and
spread little money around and we will not be
throwing you in Jail all the time
This sort of thing, Mayor Murphy did not
want the workers to know. SO the grand jury
investigation ended.
There followed in the early part Of 1881,
the trial of Pizzano for the murder Of the radio
announcer Buckley. But this too was more than
Murphy bargained for, as it threatened to reveal
the connection between the Murphy administra-
ton ana the CRIMINALS, Sucn as eAlSVeu III oue
Bowles' regime. In the midst of the trial, the
prosecuting attorney Toy, was stricken with an
unexplained ILLNESS" and the trial was sus :
pended indefinitely.
While under the Murphy regime not one 1ot
| of the underworld is changed, the Socialists
praised Mayor Murphy as the Socialist messiah
| This was of nestimable value to the big indus
trialsts of Detroit. The struggles were growing
sharper every day. Wage cut followed wage cut
| Unemployed workers we're being poisoned by rot
ten food, given out at Mayor Murphys charity
organizations" Graft was again allotted to the
is police precincts but Mayor Murphy was giver
respectable front
The New York Socialist paper, the New Lead
| err, repeatedly praised Murphy. In this, it was
| Joined by the liberal weekly, the Nation. Rev
Norman Thomas, who approved OF the grating
head of Tammany Hall in New York, Mayor
Walker took a special trip to Detroit, to pay hi
compliments to Mayor Murphy
(To be continued.)