Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1933-07-18
FEDERAL SYSTEM
OF POLICE URGED
Impression Grows Bootleg
cling Is Not Behind All
| U. S. Racketeering.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.


Suggestions that a Federal police
Sorce be created are being made. 1t
ZONES with ominous circumstances. as
She eighteenth amendment is il process
of being repealed and the Nation is OBJ
Deriving a wave of kidnapping and other
tackets.
Already word has gone ont from the
Department of Justice that friends of
those who are victims of kidnapping
should Immediately notify the Federal
authorities. The inference is that the
local police may or may not be In col
fusion with the gangsters or may be too
timid about mourning the Ll-Wlll of the
racketeers.
Before prohibition, however, had de-
veloped a real rackeJeering element
there were complaints about crime.
Immediately after the war the wave of
crime rose to unprecedented heights.
AS racketeering spread and the Grim
inals found easy money in the liquor
traffic. the public assumed that the
failure of the police locally to appre-
bend the racketeers was due to the
wide use of money to hrlbe policemen
and local officials Ever since then
prohibition has been the smoke screen
behind which the racketeer has been
hiding and most people have been ready
to believe that when prohibition was
eliminated there would be an eEd to
racketeering.
Growing in Other Fields.
But the unpleasant truth is that
racketS have been growing in recent
years other than liquor traffic and that
local police seem to have been as help
less to stop them as they were the
prohibition gangsters. The Wicker
sham Commission was really a commits
sion for the study OF crime Of all kinds.
Little attention was paid 10 its detailed
studies, especially what it had to say
about the breakdown CT the American
police system. The Iindbergh kidnap-
ing showed how clumsily the police de-
partments of various subdivisions of our
Government work and how little Coop
Grafton is possible under the present
ket-up of detached responsibilities.
1t may dawn on the American public
opinion when the eighteenth amend
been stopped that possibly local gov
ernments have been enjoying splen-
did alibi ever since the eighteenth
amendment was adopted and that pro-
hibition was not entirely responsible
Sor the deterioration of the system Of
criminal detection in American cities.
Will Press on Government.
In proportion as the people gener-
ally demand the apprehension of GRIM
inals and racketeers Of all kinds and
fail to obtain satisfaction through local
governments they will press upon the
Federal Government for action. The
pressure is already here. Every day
there is discussion of a new Federal
police force. When Congress recon-
venes we shall hear more of it. Until
now it has been said crime detection
was difficult because the people had no
sympathy with the prohibition law But
the public certainly has no sympathy
with other rackets, especially kidnap-
ing. So the answer may be found In
the incompetence of the American po-
lice system, due either to the inefh-
ciencies that politics brings. as COM
pared to European cities, where police
management is not matter of cleo
tionr. or it may be due to insufficient
funds for detective work.
Certainly unless the situation i'm
proves materially in the next six
months we shall see legislation to
develop a national police force under
the control of the Federal Government
and operating across State lines. It
would be recruited from the corps Of
prohibition agents, many of whom will
shortly be dismissed. Some of them
have become excellent detectives and
daring investigators, with a rather ex-
tensive knowledge of graft and corrup-
ton in local police systems.
tCopyrisht. 1889