Evening star., 1933-07-30

ERDICARIS alive or Raisuli
- - dead!" was the challenge Of
Theodore Roosevelt to the
i Arab kidnaper who dared to
hold a citizen Of the United
States for ranSOm-and PerdicariS was
restored his liberty. alive. Raisuli was
a piker at the kidnapping racket and
Theodore Roosevelt did not know that
the Constitution of the United States
would become impotent by amendment
before another Roosevelt came into the
executive Office.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of hap
piness" meant something as constitu-
tional guarantees before the Constitu-
ton was undermined by an amendment
that violated those principles and made
law enforcement a mockery. The kid
naper is the loathsome spawn OF the
bootlegger; the richest government on
earth has wasted untold millions OF
dollars in a vain effort to enforce an
unenforceable law, yet has done moth
ing to kill the fruit of this folly. The
amendment of the Volstead act and
the repeal of the various State prohibi-
ton enforcement acts has killed the
beer racket, but nothing has been done
to kill the racketeers. An army OF
men whose guns were for hire IN an
y,
out of that employment, have turned
their peculiar talents and their anti
social organizations to the less danger
GUS and more lucrative racket OF kid
naping for ransom.
Alcohol Runners Suspected.
kidnapping has followed kidnapping in
recent months and where there have
been any clues at all to the identity
of the kidnap gang these often have
pointed directly to alcohol runners,
beer hustlers and other members Of the
bootleg army whose wide organization
and secret hideaways for beer and hard
liquor fitted them for a quick trans:-
ton from bootlegging to kidnapping.
When John (Jake the Barber) Factor.
the former bootblack and barber Of
Chicagos West Side, recently was
seized by kidnapers on his first venture
from the city in many weeks. it was
the hoodlulns of Roger Touhey's gang
of beer hustlers that the police first
picion persisted despite the charge
made by the British consul and law
yer representing the British Crown that
the whole kidnapping was hoax staged
to enable Factor to escape possible ex-
tradition to England, where he Is
wanted to stand trial on a charge Of
swindling British investors out of ST.
0OO. 900.
It was largely to the bootleg under
world that the O'Connell brothers, who
have dominated the Democratic party
in Albany for dozen years, turned for
help when John J. O'Connell, jr., 23-
year-old scion of the O'Connen clan.
was kidnaped from his automobile di-
rectly in front of his home early in
the morning of July Z.
Through most of the prohibition era
bootleg gangs have warred among
themselves, have kidnapped the leaders
of rival gangs and held them for ram
som. Their virtual immunity from ar
rest and prosecution and the approach
ing doom of their profits from prohi-
bition encouraged them to widen their
KIDNAPPING activities. Decent citizens
were captured and held for ransoms,
and the very organization of the boot
leg gangs and their connection with
other gangs in other States made cap
ture difficult.
1881 Kidnapings Recorded.
Chief of Police Joseph Gerk of St.
Louis gathered statistics showing that
there were 203 kidnapings for ransom
IN 1891, ana at ledSI ~ LuIeS tIldt
number not reported" It has been es-
timated that 1000 persons paid ransom
for release from abductors in 1880 and
1881. During those two years 400 cities
in the United States reported kidnap-
ings.
And this menace has been steadily
growing. Now only the rich are mo-
Tested. But with the end of prohibition
and the resulting loss of livelihood to
the huge bootleg army, it is not sensa-
tionalism to predict that the crime of
kidnapping will become far more wide
spread than it is today and that thou
sands Of members of our great middle
class population will be kidnapped and
held for whatever sum their families
can raise.
What has the Federal Government
done about it? Passed two more laws
that's all. There weren't any Federal
laws against kidnapping for ransom or
the use of the United States mails for
purposes of extortion until public opin-
ion, stirred by the kidnapping of the
Lindbergh baby, forced the legislative