Milford chronicle., 1951-05-25
KEFAUvER's CRIME REPORT

Admirers of crime stories would hnd
plenty to excite their interest in the 1876
page report recently made public by Senator
Kefauver's crime committee. But this blis-
tering document is far cry from piece of
fiction. 1t disclOses a situation which, in the
view of the Investigators, is direct and
growing menace to American institutions.
The report gives names, dates and places.
Some of the names belong to men who hold
or have held high positions in government
city, state and Federal. 1t describes the sOr-
did tie-up between gamblers, police and poll
ticians in large American cities Some of the
leading lights in the gambling business, it
says, are veterans of the old CapOne gang
And it charges that the Once-famOus Mafa IS
the "binder which ties together the two ma
iOr criminal syndicates as well as numerous
other criminal groups throughout the cOun-
try"
great many people seem to believe that
the big-time gambler and racketeer now
thinks of himself as a business man and acts
like a business manufacturing paying his
proper taxes. The Kefauver group takes a
dim view of this belief The gamblers make
tax returns, true enough, but the committee
thinks that these returns are, financially
speaking, masterpieces of underStatement
The government, it alleges "has been de-
frauded of huge sums of money in tax reVe-
nues by racketeers and gangsters engaged
in criminal activities" 1t further empha-
sizes, "Huge sums in cash handled by rack
eteers and gangsters are not reflected in their
income tax returns" 1t is extremely critical
of certain tax accountants and tax lawyers
who, it says, assisted the mObsters in de-
frauding the government.
One deduction. which can be made from
this remarkable hard-hitting report is that
the respectable gambler" is, the or
binary citizen who bets two dollars now and
then with his bOOkie or runs handful of
coins through a slot MACHINES making
real and extremely important contribution
to the power and wealth of the criminal syn
dicates, He, in fact is the man who makes
their existence possible. For their revenues
come from the millions upon millions of
small wagers that are made-not from the
activities of few people who bet thou
sands on a roll Of the dice or turn of the
wheel. And so, this citizen makes all the
resulting graft and civic corruption pOss-
ible as we'll
The committee offers % specific recon-
mendatiOns where the Federal government
might aid in crime prevention. These in
clude tightening up the immigration laws
to make it easier to get rid of alien mObsters,
a ban on the interstate transmission of gam
bling information, establishment of a Fed
eral crime commission, and so on. How
ever, it comes to the definite conclusion that
crime is local problem, which -'must be
attacked primarily at the local level, with
supplementary aid, where appropriate, from
state and Federal authorities"
This country has witnessed many a crime
investigation, but Senator Kefauver's COM
mittee was the first to operate on national
scale. 1t has dredged up an enormous and
shocking amount of information. Now it
remains to be seen what the various units
of government, and the people, will do about
it.