The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-05-13
In New York
,v rAUr HARRIsoN

New York.-At this writing there have been six murders, one hun. dred arrests and q great many uuarreis. recriminatfons and ambit- ious promises involved in New York's. regular sesquidecennial drive on commercialized vice and gambling. Especially on gambling. and most particularly on that amazing phenomenon of sucker dom, the numbers game
 Since one of Mir Dutch Schuitz's own attorneys has esti- mated that the annual "tase" of the policy racket may run to $1O0, GOO, 900, 1t would seem high ly desirableto squelch it. But to anybody who. has watched the numbers disease run into a vir- ulent fever, 1t seems unlikely that any, important squelchingI is hke- ly to be done.
 The idea of daily lottery orig mated in Harlem about 90 years ago. and was introduced by an en- terprising Spaniard named Jose MarsaIine. The lucky numbers were determined by the printed statements of, first, the New York Stock Exchange, then the Clear ing House, and later of the Fed eral Reserve Bank. The last three digits of the total determined the winning number each day.
 se
 It Pays to Retire
 In a short time the black belt was full of policy kings and policy queens who had grown rich. even unto the millions, by selling tickets. It was so lucrative, indeed, that Fracketeers began to take over the industry; and in Harlem there were many expensive funerals for local policy kings who had been ,reluct- ant to abdicate. For awhile the supreme ruler of the Harlem racket was a. West Indian negro named 2 Casper Holstein, a dark, dapper man whose gentle voice would fool you.
 suave. sensible Mir Holstein is alive today, and playing poker at his Turf club. because he did not argue, with MT Dutch Schultz and Mir Schultz.s machine gnnners when they dropped around to sug- igest that he take a. vacation. That was in a19sf.S 4 Tx. tf1sAs tys {, By that time. something like a hundred thousand HarlemiteS were playing a"de nuraberss Y regularly. and the profits to MT Schultz counting out his bookkeeping costs. ticlket-sellers' ' commissions and bribery expenses--were estimated at something like $20,000 a day. Police tried ineffectuailysto to curb the racket. as they Mad tried many times 2. before. Harlem became mere than usually impoverished people couldn't pay the weekly in stailment collectors for insurance companies and burial societies. ,e.S ses
 Long Live thc King!
 In addition. to. certain profes- sionai researches in Harlem, your ent has had the aid of 8, maid and shirt -Iaufdfe named Maybeiie in grasping the method and scope of the numbers racket. Afaybeile tells me. that her ice man., her news dealer and her grocer all sell policy tickets. There also is professioiial peddler-one of fundreds who have daily door-to-. door sroutes,s like mail cafriers-- who canvasses her Apartment building. She don't have no truck with this guy, though, heeatse if some night she should have an especially vivid dream, and look it up in her thumb pes dream book and bet "a dollar on the number. and win s54Os Chose being the pre- yaiiing odds)--if all those things should happen, the salesman most likely would take her money and skip. +lA,s
 Because her grocer isn't likely to skip, Maybelle does her daily betting7-usually e nickel or a. dirne--with him. Even during the current police crusade he has conducted his lottery business as, usual. When the coast is clear of prowling detectives he signals his clientele by placing . ginger ale bottle in one of. his show windoWs.. # the high-pp policy kings ee- tually are appreheuded and tna-' prisoned, says Maybeile, the, ice man, the news dealer and the. grocer (and thousands more like them. in other sectiops) doubtless will, sell tickets and bank their. own games. That's the way it always starts. Some will go broke, through runs of bad luck. Many will prosper. Gradually, by dtnt of dire threats.and straight shoot inG. now policy kings will emerge, fl s.xt 3eh' 60 on arl'-on." explain, cd Maybella ''De po-iesee. dcy' can't do nothin. Amt nobody cfH do nething 'canss 6e gecpis's