Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-12-02
United States VS.. q Waiter

In all fairness to MIR. Fay, the united
States Attorney, he wanted to get the big
gamblers. They were the ones he said he
was after not the small fry The small
fry cannot be very important in racket
that, Mr.. Fay estimated, does a hundred
million dollar business around Washington
every year. Anybody can pick up the
small fry-even the police.
But what does Mr.. Fay get in his first
haul? No big shots. No boss racketeers.
All he gets is a little waiter over at Ham
meIs, the steak house. That is his hrst
conviction since the big anti-gambling
drive got underway over eighteen months
ago, with a special grand jury, special
prosecutors and agents and series OF
colorful raids.
What did the waiter do? He accepted
three bets on horse race. There was
no evidence to indicate that ne sohclteo
the BETS Two of Mr.. Fay's agents, q
man and a woman, posing as customers
gave him money to bet on the horses
He accepted 1t. It was no great amount
of money, the sort of money that one
associates with hundred million dollar
a year racket. The bets were So bets. The
waiter was convicted of what the law
describes as setting up a gaming table"
As Judge Keech told NE jury, setting up
q table does not mean setting up table.
It means making available facilities for
betting. The waiter made himself avail
able. So the jury found him guilty OF
q felony.
While the waiter is the first to be
convicted, he may not, of course, be the
last. OF thirty-six individuals indicted
in the big anti-gambling drive, two are
dead and cases have been dismissed against
two others-one Of whom pleaded guilty
to some charges in Alexandria and another
has been acquitted. Fourteen defendants
are temporarily free after hung jury and
will be tried again. There are sixteen
others yet to be tried. Mr. Fay may land
q big shot yet.
But on the same day jury found the
waiter guilty in one part of the court
house, will was filed in another part
the same establishment The will disposed
of a million dollar estate. The man who
wrote this will was the late James A. La
Fontaine, who died, at peace with the
law, at the ripe old age of 81. During his
lifetime he accumulated a large fortune
catering to the desire of his fellow citizens
to gamble He never got into trouble with
the law-any serious trouble. He never
got into as much trouble with the law in
his whole lifetime as the little waiter at
Hammeps, taking So bets from Mr.. Fays
agents, has got himself into. That was
partly because Mr.. La Fontaine was much
OF o1t
But even smart men get tangled up with
the law So Mr.. La Fontaines ability to
keep out of trouble was only partly due
to his being smart. The real reason he
kept out of trouble is that the laws against
gambling are not enforced against the
big fellows the smart fellows. The big
fellows, with the help of skilled counsel,
are often able to show that the law en-
forcers, in their effort to get the gamblers,
violate laws on search and seizure and
the procurement of evidence that are even
more important to society than the anti
gambling laws. This is not to say that
the anti-gambling laws could not be en-
forced, and enforced without running afoul
other laws The FBI has cracked tougher
cases, against tougher racketeers, than
Washington's hundred million dollar racket
But the FBI brand of law enforcement
requires smart men, adequate funds to
hire them and train them and a zeal that
is generated by public sentiment With
defendants still waiting trial, it would be
premature to suggest that Mr.. Fay has
failed. But with the first haul producing
merely the little waiter at Hammels, who
took some So bets, the prospect is not
stimulating.