Evening star., 1932-07-17
RACKETS' TOLL DRIVES
TRADE FROM NEW YORK
Shipping Companies and Factories Are
Steadily Fleeing From Necessity OF
Paying Gangster Tribute.
made, in New York City, to break their

|
hold.
The gangsters' entrance into the un-
ions was unexpected. Some OF the or
ganizations, against sound ADVICE OF
wiser and older heads, hired gangsters
to protect them, in labor disputes,
against the private detective agencies"
nominally retained by the employers to
guard their plants and workers. In
some instances the gangsters remained
on the pay rolls of the union after the
| strike or lockout had been settled. Per-
haps some one was hurt or killed on
the other side. The gangster employed
by the union would hint that he knew
who had done it and who had inspired
it. but would he go to the police or to
the district attorney and betray his
employers? Not he!-provided the re-
lationship of employe and employer
The pier racket, as the preying on
| the commerce of the port Is locally
known. Is older than the rackets which
are driving industry from the metrop-
oils.
Private Watchmen Needed.
The piers Of the city need private
watchmen. In view OF the enormous
expenditure for the city's police. which
[,Sl l,tZ
| imagine that it would not require many
watchmen to supplement the work of
the city'S police. But the steamship
companies annually spend tens Of mil
! lions in this way Nobody knows how
much is being spent, but whatever this
enormous levy may be 1t Is mostly
wanton waste, and 1t is not borne by
the shippers, for they pass 1t along TO
| the ultimate consumer.
The oldest form of racketeerlng lies
in the leasing of piers. For more than
a generation this has been a sore spot
in New York The piers on the city IS
| 537 miles of waterfront are assessed at
s63l 900, 900. About half are privately
owned. The rest are owned by the city,
which leases them. Herein lies the
graft.
Strange things usually happen, as re-
cent testimony illustrates, when a
steamship line begins to negotiate for
the lease of a city-owned pier The
first of these is the retaining Of lawyer
Of the dominant political party, al
though its own regular counsel Is fully
competent.
A favorite device for robbing the
people of fair return on the money
they put into the city-owned piers and
for swindling the shipping men Is to
| lease the pier at ridiculouSly low rates
to dummy corporations which extort as
much as the traffic will bear from the
commerce of the port.
Another reprehenSible racket in the
industrial and commercial life of the
metropolis is called the leaders racket
A loader ekes out Scanty living load
ing trucks with freight from the ships
The impoverished loader and the
wealthy importer are the principal VIC
tins of this racket, but, as in all rackets
the cost of the racket Is passed on to
| the ultimate consumer.
Gangsters and crooked labor leaders
control this racket. 1t is estimated that
it yields from s5,ooo,ooo to SIS, ZOO, ,ooo
annually.
There are few piers where the load
ers are not victims Of this system. The
United Fruit Co. fought it out with the
gangsters and won. The loader fixes
the prices at which the freight on the
piers will be loaded on the trucks
Gangsters see to it that the importer
who uses his own men to load his own
trucks meets with violence and that his
property is destroyed. Usually the truck
is seized outside the pier. its engine
smashed with a sledge-hammer and
the importers employees assaulted.
1OSt O1 lllC CIcChclS WOih Will tAAe
leaders. Until the checker checks the
freight it cannot be moved from the
dock.
The rate for loading is cents hun
dredweight on general cargo and 4
cents on bulk. Shippers say loading
can be done at good profit for less than
one-third this rate. In more than a
dozen complaints selected at random
and examined by the author, importers
were forced to pay from twice to nearly
five times the established rate.
Most leaders are creatures Of
padrone, who takes the money they
earn or extort and returns a part to
them. Many Of them never worked or
pier and some have never done
manual labor Some of these rack
eteers tell the leaders to patronize GER
tain speakeaSieS and restaurants and
where they may buy food and clothes
for themselves and families. The loader
obeys or loses his job.
Many padrones are rich. Some are
bootleggers on the side. They ride tc
the piers in high-powered cars. usually
accompanied by armed bodyguards.
Children and the sick are Dictims
OF the milk racket Which has
tlourished in Ne1D York and other
cities since 1928. This racket and Its
political rdmifcations ,DiH be dis
cussed merit SunddU