The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1933-06-21
CRIME MUST BE CRUSHED
San Francisco Chroniclel

The time has come when the federal
government must lend its power to the
crushing of organized crime or see society
crushed by organized crime. Local gov
ernment everywhere has been shown in
adequate to cope with the ferocious as
sault of the underworld because crime is
no longer local problem but national
menace.
kidnapping, robbery and blackmail
run wild, a defiance of justice and a dis
grace in the eyes of the world. Cynical,
brutal gang leaders have usurped the rule
of law. They have put crime on an or
ganized basis, Big Business with troops,
armed cars, fortified strongholds. The
people of our greatest cities no longer
know when the streets will be swept with
a hail of lead from automatic guns in the
hands Of gangster braves
The murder rate in America is three,
five, ten times that in other countries re-
gartIed as civilized. Racketeering strangIes
many lines of commerce, taking toll from
business and from the produce of the farm
ers in centers of distribution. It keeps paid
spies. ambassadors in political circles,
brides public officials, corrupts public serv-
ants and finances campaign funds. It OPP
crates with retinue of bondsmen and
shrewd lawyers retained as big corpora
lions retain counsel foxy in technicalities,
wits and interminable appeals
Meanwhile the nation stands helpless,
crying for aid to the local governments that
are paralyzed helpless but for the strong
hand of the federal government, which
alone has the force to destroy organized
crime
The government has this force, and
has proved it. When crime crosses the
frontiers Of federal authority, when it col
lides with federal functions. il cringes un-
der the mighty hand Of police power which
the government has taken unto itself
through postal, narcotic, treasury. inter-
state commerce and even tax laws. The
'counterfeiter postoffice robber. the Of
fender against the might of Washington,
all these get short shrift.
But when government would stretch
out helping hand to local authority be-
set by public enemies, that help is obstruct-
ed by the constitutional reservation of POI
lice powers to the states, reservations made
by men in fear of the tyranny of central
government, men fresh from battle fields
where they had struck off the tyranny of
q mother country.
Upon rare occasion the government
finds pretext OF federal interest to stamp
out q public enemy who has defied local
authority. If violation of income tax laws
q sufficient pretext to destroy a gang
ster, is not the fact that organized crime
n America today has passed heyand local
boundaries aud IS at the very throat of
government itself, sufficient pretext to
crush it with blow of the federal fist?
Attorney General Homer S. Cum
mings has pointed out the necessity and
the readiness of the federal government TO
meet the menace of organized crime. The
weapons of the government now are in
adequate, Mr.. Cummings declares. and the
advantage of restricted authority now
shielding professional crooks. mnrderers,
raeketeers must be taken from them I'M
der program of united action in which
the government may cooperate with al