Evening star., 1951-07-27

condensed from the book, Crime ir
America" by Senotor Kefouyer.
many industries and the same
type of good citizens found every
where, but which. through civic
inertia, had fallen completely
under the thumb of vicious
criminals.
The mob, led by men high in
the Maf1a, had run the town-and
MIXED it: A Federal grand jury
in Kansas City found that the IL
legal gambling business had
crossed more than $34 million a
year.
The mobsters could do this be-
cause they were able to "buy''
many small and middle-sized
officials, and to influence some big
ones.
Actually. the Kansas City Police
Department was headed by good
chief and included some officers
who made an excellent impression
on the Senate Crime Committee.
In the county, however. it was
different. There the committee
found Sheriff J. A. Purdome mot
ably lax"
One fantastic fact was that
Purdome permitted a racketeer,
Wolf Riman, juke box and pin
ball king, to hold deputy
Sheriff's commission and to oper-
ate a car equipped with siren and
red light. Riman was murdered
and Sheriff Purdome married his
widow.
No responsible person condones
murder as an instrument of social
justice, but there seemed to be a
moral lesson in the violent end
met by Charlie Binaggio, Kansas
City's r+igping evil genius. This
conniving, particularly courageous
gangster a fixer rather than a
muscle man was murdered in his
political clubhouse. Dead beside
him was his lieutenant and "en-
forcer," Charlie Gargotta.
If evel a human deserved the
title of mad dog" it was Gargot-
ia. His record showed 80 arrests
on charges ranging from at
tempted burglary to murder. Once
he killed man in cold blood on
the streets, but a corrupt police
officer switched Identification tags
on the muroer weapon, and Gar
gotta beat the homicide charge.
Called "5 Iron Men,"
Binaggio, Gargotta, Tano Loco
CO, Fat Tony Gizzo and grizzled
old Jim Balestrere, reputed malta
chieftaip in Kansas City, were
known as "the Five Iron Men"
These five and their henchmen
controlled most of the important
gambling in the Kansas City area.
Binaggio 81 Co. would spot a
profitable gambling operation and
decide tGey ought to be invited"
in. If the operators were not
smart enough to issue such an
'invitation,' their places of busi-
ness would be bombed, robbed or
otherwise harassed until they got
smarter. One stubborn gambler
named Reneger wound up with
his head blown off.
Among other Binaggio proper
ties, in partnership with Gargotta,
Lococo, Snag Klein and Eddie
Osadchey, was the Last Chance
Tavern.
The Last Chance was an in
triguing establishment on the
border between Kansas and Mis-
souri,. with a thin wall right on
the State line. When cops from
one State would come to raid"
it, the gamblers would shift over
to the other side, and carry on.
Cops from both States never
seemed to arrive at the same time.
Osadchey, Gargotta, Lococo
and Klein muscled in on Simon
Partnoy's profitable wire service
in Kansas City after the Chicago
Capone syndicate set out to take
over the Nationwide race news
racket. Another time, Osadchey
and Klein, without putting up a
dollar, moved into Iowa to
muscle" themselves SO per cent
of Council Bluffs gambling
place called the Stork Club, in
which the original owners had
invested $4,000.
Denies There Was ANY Muscle"
Eddie insists that there really
was no muscle" 1t was merely
a case, he explained, where, after
he and Snag offered to "buy" the
whole club for $4,000. the owners
countered with proposition that
they take half of it for nothing.
Jim Balestrere, the old Sicilian-
born mobster identified as one of
Kansas City Mafia leaders, played
dumb. He represented himself to
us as a poor, old jobleSs fellow
who lived on little income from
a piece Of business property tonce
rented to a gambling house) and
on few dollars given him by his
children. But he didn't impress
us as dumb at all. People in
Kansas City rackets used to say
that "Balestrere has a piece of
Binaggio."
Apparently, he had a piece" of
many persons. Balestrere himself
told us how once when he
needed a job" he sought help
from the late Tom Pendergast,