The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-11-03
The Racket's Red Glare
BY JAMES WILLIAM FITZPATRICK (From the November Issue of America)

EDITORS NOTE-James VII. Ham Fitzpatrick, formerly from Waterbury, later identified with the theater, now free lance" writer and lecturer, still wields as wicked q pen as when he stole the spotlight in the White Rat -Theatrical war some years ago Where there's . good scrap you
 will usually find James William,
 frOnl then on its just too bad.
 One of the most difficult and pressing jobs staring the American Federation of Labor in the face is the extermination of the racketeel in organized labor circles. Difficult because the right kind of extermin-
 ator is yet to be invented; and pressing because if the Federation does not finish the racketeer, the racketcer will finish the Fedora ton. Perched on the horns of this dilemma it is not strange that the lives of the heads of the Fedora tion begin to resemble more closely each day the unhappy lot of Gil- bert's policeman. What with trying to keep wages from being ham, mered down by interruptions em- ployers who are making the de- pression an excuse for the ham, mering, and with trying to remove the clutch of the racketeer from the honest unions, 1t is no wonder that spokesmen for the Federation have been goaded into utterances which are not altogether according to the book.
 The inaccnracy of these utter- ances may be overlooked in view of the fact that while organized la bor is not the only institution upon which the racketeer has a strangle- hold, the inference conveyed in many instances by newspaper com mentators is that it is the trade union which serves as his hatchery. Ordinary esprit de corps might well be the inspiration of the brist- ling resentment displayed by Fed eration officials when the word racketeering is mentioned. There is a common, but erroneous belief that the Chicago union exploiter, for example, was a wage worker first and a strong-arm worker sec ond. It is quite forgotten that the first public appearance of organ ized gangsters in that city was spon sored by prominent newspaper proprietor, who imported them from the East as free lances in a furious circulation war in which he was engaged with other respect able newspaper proprietors. Pro- tected in their crimes by their em- ployer's money and influence while the war was on, they acquired ad- ditional contempt for the law. When the fight was over, like all free lances out of work, they look ed about for other worlds to con- quer. Starting in on the small bus- mess man with their extortions, they proceeded to the larger one, and when unrestricted competition in that line made business unprofit- able, they turned their eyes on the organized labor field. The hypno- tism of momentum did the rest.
 The field, however, was not a1- together virgin. There were exploit CTS and vultures in the organized labor movement years before the word racket meant anything but a loud noise or an implement for playing tennis. The name was then "grafter" and the type was a loud mouthed, free-spending rogue who drank deeply, was sort Of Robin Hood to the unfortunate. and had some of the picturesque features of a deep-sea buccaneer on shore leave. Missing out his sfallacious concepts of justice and social ac- tion, he was not altogether vicious. To quote the words of a former steel erector who had many battles with the late Sam Parks. "TIe was a square shooter and he never grafted off the men," Compared with the present-day union racket ger who preys on man and boss alike, to whom mayhem is a boy ish prank and murder an outdoor diversion, the old-style labor "faker" takes on the innocent char acter of a ten-year-old choir boy. He secured his permanence in of flee by getting better wages and working conditions for the men. He was always someone who had