The Wilmington morning star., 1947-04-29
As Pegler Sees 1t
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

ny IIOLGN
Copyright by King Features Syndicate, Incl
On March 8, these essays remarked that
the local boss of the b~artenders' union IN
Miami and Miami Beach, Fla, was Al "a
pone's br~other-inlaw. Harry Brand, president,
and Clyde Foster, secretary-treasurer of Lo'
cal 1873 with jurisdiction in that area, pro-
tested to John S. Knight, the publisher OF the
Miami Herald. They said they did not desire
"a retraction but did wish to naIi a statement
which they said was untruthful. They ex-
pressed sensitive concern for the good name
of our local union
My interest in the affairs of the bartenders
in the Miamis began in the winter Of 1939-4o
when a New York restaurant man who was
operating a winter branch on the beach re-
marked that a union agent was rounding up
his bartenders, walters, busboys and cooks.
There was an initiation fee of SIS each. Dues
for the bartenders and walters were S. a
week. He said the union agent was one Harry
Rose. I had come across Rose in New York
and when I telephoned him al his hotel on
Miami Beach he said he was doing a legiti-
mate business for two unions, the bartenders'
and the building service employees, then op-
Grated from New York by George Scalise as
figurenead for the remainder of the Capone
mob. Rose got a commission on all initiation
fees. In the hotel trade he was 'organizing'
the chambermaids. bellhops and pot-Wallop-
ers for the Scalise branch Of the Capone mob
and he was 'organizing' the bartenders,
walters and others for the bartenders' union.
Accurate figures are not available in such
matters even to the Department of Labor. but
it would be no exaggeratiop to say that Rose
was working a field of at least 10000 pros
pective victims, most of them subject TO Gin
itia'ion' at the SIS rate. The Messrs. Brand
and Foster. in their current letter to Mr..
knight of the Herald, say they have 1000
members in their bartenders' union alone.
Rose was a racketeer with a criminal rec
ord in New York. He had never been elected
to any union position. Scalise, Of course, was
just a criminal %gangster who had done a
term in Atlanta for pandering. incidentally.
he enjoyed the confidence of both William
Green, the president of the American FEEDER
alton OF Labor. and Joseph Padway, general
colnseI of the AT. of L. Pathways personal
admiration was expressed in a letter to Sea-
lise after his ~rascality was denounced in these
dispatches. Further inquiry, in cooperation
with the city desk Of Mr.. Knights Herald at
that time, disclosed that Dan Coughlan, Ca
pones brother-in-law and the caretaker, or
guard, at Capone's estate, was the boss Of
the bartenders. Another power in their affairs
was a former Chicago bootlegger who later
achieved considerable authority in the Florida
State Federation of Labor.
The bartenders' local was uncooperative
and uncolnmunicative in these Inquiries. Thus
when the Messrs. Brand and Foster state,
as they now do in their letter to Mr. Knight,
that it would be easy for anyone to learn who
the officers of the local really are, they dis
pute practical experience.
At that time. Frank Eitti. a notorious Grim
ina and, as it were, secretary Of state to
the Caponc mob, was living on Miami Beach.
With the rest Of the criminal scum he was
manufacturing and selling carbonated water.
This product was pushed by the bartenders
and walters of the union to the exclusion of
others. The proprietors, knowing the charac-
ter of the Capone-Nitti mob, were acquies-
cent. Many of them were gangsters them
selves. Nit; later was indicted in the federal
roundup of the BroWne-Bioff racket in the
moving picture employees union, which was
another rich and exclusive province of the
Capone-Nitti gang. He shot himself. But his
were convicted and sent to
prison.
Scalisc also was sent TO prison for a long
term oy Tom Dewey and a few years later
Rose went to prison in New York on a charge
arising out of another phase of his criminal
career His close association with Scalise was
shown when he turned up as president of a
holding company which Scalise formed to
corceai the fact that he was the actual buyer
of a country estate.
Few citizens realize that under the patron
age of the Roosevelt regime it had been com
mon, unbiushllg practice to pay a commits
sion TO racketeers on the initiation fees of
members dragooned into unions. 1t is a fabu-
lousy rich racket, blessed by the new deal
The bartenders' union necessarily operates
largely in the haunts OF the criminal UNDER
world. Prostitution is an auxiliary of the trade
in night clubs and taverns. The gangsters
deal IN liquor, carbonated water, aprons
white Jackets, table linen, towels, peanuts
potato chips and pretzels.
Recently. in Chicago, Mrs. James Crowley
the wife OF the president of the Chicago Local.
was murdered as she sat beside her husband
In Their automobile. This was a shotgun. or
olast-furnace, job. Crowley himself was bad.
ly wounded.
About two weeks later, Dennis Kelly. of
oohet. the business agent of local 604 of the
oar1enGers, was shot from ambush. He sur-
vived. ~
crowley and Kelly had been campaigning
10 WIN control of the treasury Of the interna.
tonal union, a formidable plot, at the i'm
pendlne convention in Milwaukee. Both tha
IN the outs maintained that they were de-.
tending the treasury against gangsters. Crow
ley ana Kelly were defeated in the conven-
ton
This background is offered to indicate bou,
very difficult it is to get accurate information
concerning the intimate affairs of the har.
tenders union. 1t will suggest also the flti1itv
of applying to the local office anvu,horo a-13