The Night Roll

==Chapter VI-The Night Roll==
A DIGNIFIED WHITE-HAIRED MAN of some Sixty-odd years, his face looking no more pinched than usual, walked slowly to the Army jeep and crawled laboriously into the rear seat,
"I never rode in a jeep," he told First Lieutenant Donald Lee and Warrant Officer Forney G. Hughes. "I always wanted to, though, but I never figured I'd ride in one on my way to jail."
The jeep bumped along as Ben L. Cole, a member of the lower house in Alabama's State Legislature, had plenty of time to contemplate the reasons for his being on the way to the Phenix City Jail, and whether the trail he had followed was worth it. He was undoubtedly surprised. The date was September, 1954, and Representative Cole must have supposed that the three-year statue of limitations had run out on his former occupation as silent partner in a "bug" house. Lee and Hughes, investigating for the Alabama National Guard, thought differently, but they did not inform Mr, Cole of their opinions.
Cole, quite certain he was in the clear, spoke freely of his operations. The Representative was a quiet man who also ran a restaurant in Phenix City. He lived near the Russell-Lee County line, in the country where it was nice and quiet. His home was modern, ranch-type, with air conditioning units throughout.
Despite his facade of gentility. Cole did not fool all of the people all of the time. In a public hearing, a woman had identified him as a "bug" operator,
A "bug" operator is one who runs or owns a lottery house. In Phenix City, they call the lottery "the bug." It also goes by other names, such as "the numbers," "the bond," "bolita," "bread and butter," "the wheel," and "the night roll."
The bug is a simple game, easy to play, as cheap or as expensive as the player wishes to make it. He can bet one penny, a thousand dollars, or as much more as the individual house will allow. The player may win fabulous amounts-$25 on a five cent bet, for instance. It is the odds which make the game so impelling.
All the player need do is give his money to a "writer" who calls on him at home or at work, and then the player writes down three numbers from zero to nine. A new game is played daily, five days a week. The player knows by nightfall whether his three numbers, in the order he selected them, are the winning combination.
During the heyday of the bug in Phenix City, the "101 Circus" came to Columbus, Georgia. Practically every bug player in the area chose the numbers "101." By a quirk of fate, most certainly not planned by the houses, 101 turned out to be the correct arrangement for the day. No accurate total is available on just what the operators lost the day the *101 Circus" came to town but the estimate is they kissed $100,000 goodbye. Nevertheless, soon they were back at the old stands. An operator can figure easily on taking in sixty per cent of the day's receipts, the other forty per cent going to the winners and the writers.
Winning numbers generally are selected in one of three ways. The most common method in Phenix for years was to take the stock and bond quotations from the New York Stock Exchange each afternoon. Any series of three numbers could be designated as winners. Since the quotations run in seven figures, it was customary that the second, third, and fourth digits from the left would be the correct choice, or, the second and third numbers in one quotation, and the third in the second quotation.
Two obvious advantages came to the player under this selection system. He could read the results, for himself, in the final editions of the afternoon papers, and — even more important — there was no way for the house to fix the game.
There was a way for players to rig a selection, though. and this, added to the errors made by house-men, caused operators to change their method of picking winners.
In the early days the operators had to learn by experience to stop selling tickets a half-hour before the stock market closed. They became educated the hard way. An out-of-town player with telephone connections to the New York Stock Exchange would telephone the Phenix City houses within minutes after the market closed. Unknown to the bugmen, he had the winning numbers before he placed his bet.
Also, there was the occasion when an operator long-distanced New York for the day's returns and somehow copied the numbers incorrectly. He was forced to pay two sets of winners for the day.
Winners can be chosen by the spin of a wheel or the toss of a special die, numbered from zero to nine. Three spins of the wheel or three tosses of the die produce the three lucky numbers. Operators liked these arrangements because either is easy to fix.
Still another system is the dropping of numbered balls into a cloth sack. The operator reaches in the sack and pulls out three balls. But the operator will have held out the numbers which have been heavily played, saving himself a big payoff. He can also conceal numbered balls in a hidden compartment within the bag.
The bug is a vicious racket. It preys upon people in the very lowest income bracket, who can't forget that for five cents they might pick up $25.
They play It daily. Even people on relief have invested in the bug from their tiny income. In many cases, probably the majority, the winner doesn't keep his new-found wealth long. He gets so excited he invites all his friends and neighbors in to celebrate and the slush fund is gone in a wild melee of festivities. In addition, the winner in Alabama has paid his writer five per cent of his winnings while a Georgia winner paid his agent ten per cent.
Principal victims of the bug in the South are the Negroes. They, also, were the primary targets of another lottery racket.
Operators boosted their income by selling dream books for fifty cents to one dollar. Bug players— like all gamblers— are notoriously superstitious, which explains why so many chose the "101 Circus." Players will dream a dream and can hardly wait until they awaken to check their dream in the book. The number they select that day is the one abreast of the dream classification in the book.
When Cole was detained at the city jail by Lee and Hughes, they talked for some hours. Hughes discovered Cole's activities the same way he uncovered every other bug operator in the county.
Since even the writers needed federal gambling stamps, Hughes checked federal records to obtain names and addresses of purchasers. Before approaching the big boys, he would contact the writers to learn details of each house. The writer could be used as a witness against the big man himself.
A problem, which could have become a major obstacle, presented itself. The writers were not merely hesitant to testify, they didn't want to say a word. They feared their information would incriminate them. Guardsmen searched lawbooks until they found a section which permitted a writer to appear before the Grand jury and receive personal immunity from prosecution.
With this law available, Hughes already had the goods on Cole before he started talking with him.
Cole's story was that he had gone into the bug racket in 1937 and that he had quit in September, 1951. September, said Cole, was the month in which the federal stamp had become effective and that is when he quit the profession. Cole was in error, but eventually the Guard dropped the lottery count. Cole paid a fine on a charge of leasing premises for gambling purposes. The federal stamp did not go into operation until November 1, 1951. Cole said he had been a silent partner in "The Old Reliable Lottery."
It was indeed reliable, as far as Cole's financial position was concerned. His income from that source alone ran as high as $1,000 over a 24-hour period. Cole didn't bother to count the proceeds to see if he was getting a fair shake. He relied upon his partners, W, C. Roney and Lawrence Roney, father and son, to notify him daily of his profit and to deposit his share to his account in the bank.
The Old Reliable was one of seven lottery houses, of the bigger variety, going full blast in Phenix City. The others were The Metropolitan, The National, the Yarbrough-McCollister Lottery, The Old Original, The White Swan and Billingsley's Ritz Cafe Lottery.
Jimmy Matthews and Hoyt Shepherd, with Clyde Yarbrough, originally ran The Old Reliable from the Ritz Cafe on Dillingham Street. When Cole and the Roneys took charge, they moved headquarters to the Yellow Front Cafe, The 514 Club, and the Girard Cleaners. Shepherd and Matthews moved out of the Ritz and A. B. (Buck) Billingsley moved in with his home-made organization.
The Yarbrough-McCollister Lottery had home base in Yarbrough's Cafe on Fourteenth Street under joint management of Clyde Yarbrough and Stewart McCollister. It was not among the top bracket houses, grossing only $500 to $600 a day.
McCollister was a protege' of Shepherd and Matthews and was among their successors at The Bama Club. Yarbrough, on the other hand, was the old pro himself. It was Yarbrough who taught Shepherd and Matthews the ropes in the bug when they first entered The Old Reliable. It was Yarbrough, too, who first taught Matthews the tricks with dice and cards that were to make him rich before he was twenty-five.
Now sick and old, Yarbrough is in a semi-retired status. Cancer has eaten away much of his nose and face, and he wears a mass of bandages as he sits at his cash register in the cafe. His operation with McCollister in the lottery project was motivated, in all probability, by nostalgia.
Cole spent the night of his arrest in the city jail. He was not only a man who cherished peace and quiet; he was a philanthropist of a sort. He offered to "pay out" any inmate then in jail who was serving time for lack of funds. Through his generosity, he hoped to get shed of the drunks who might keep him awake.
Four jailbirds were allowed to accept Cole's offer. The gesture cost him about $50. Unfortunately for Cole, about two a.m. a fresh drunk was brought into the bastille, and kept up such a ruckus the remainder of the night that the legislator got no sleep at all.
Cole took his jailing philosophically. As soon as the doors clanged behind him, he sat down on a cot and started a game of poker.
"Just say," he told those within earshot, "that I'm playing cards with my friends."
Cole actually was a man with a good heart. He once donated $15,000 to his church. On another occasion, he gave $800 to the principal of a school with which to buy lunches for underprivileged children.
Of all the illicit operations in Phenix City, lottery-- was far and away the most profitable, the biggest, and the easiest. Captain Martin J, Wiman, of the Guard, said one house, The Metropolitan, raked up $20,000 minimum during one twenty-four-hour period. That was not representative. Usually the loot did not run so high.
A peculiarity about the lottery operators was that they kept books. They held onto ticket stubs and itemized in detail the amounts they paid to writers on commission.
As did most of the underworld in Phenix City, the operators suffered from that not-so-strange disease among crooks: Uncle Samitis. The malady could be labeled Al Caponitis, non-contagious, non-infectious, but oh-so-permanent, when it takes hold. In brief, they feared the income tax boys.
When armed Guardsmen cracked into the bogus Bridge Grocery on Dillingham Street, from where The Metropolitan Lottery was run, at three a.m. on July 25, they found enormous quantities of lottery paraphernalia as well as every other type of gambling device imaginable. Elaborate records were discovered intact. There were large stacks of ledgers, running from current statistics back for several years. Auditors' reports were neatly filed, as were the carbons of gambling stamps issued to all the writers.
Entries chronicled even minute details of the million dollar business blue-printed by a chief bully-boy, C. O. (Head) Revel, and his sometime partner, George Davis, Sr, The amount each writer earned in the past year was entered under his name, and federal withholding taxes were paid on income shown.
One hundred writers worked for the house. The daily take was in excess of $2,000. A balance sheet for one year showed a gross income from lottery just shy of a million dollars. In that year, the partners made salaries of close to $80,000 each and split a "surplus profit melon" at the end of the year amounting to another $73,000.
Sharing in the consignment was George Davis, Jr.-a junior partner at the moment, who received a slice of the melon when it was cut at year's end.
On the morning of the raid at The Grocery, the elder Davis, bloated and doped, rocked back and forth on a high stool. He spoke not a word and did not appear to be interested in what was going on. H. J. Revel, a surly brother of "Head" Revel, worked the combination of the safe under the watchful eyes and ready guns of Guardsmen.
In addition to lottery and gambling equipment uncovered, there were ten adding machines and several money counters in the so-called grocery. A refrigerator in one of the gambling rooms contained hypodermic needles and small, empty glass bottles. Nearly four hundred dollars in bent coins had been thrown into boxes, apparently taken from slot machines and tossed aside to avoid re-use. Loose twenty dollar bills were stuffed into envelopes.
A file, marked "Revel Amusement Company," contained data on slot machines and juke boxes owned by the company, which was separate from The Metropolitan. The documents indicated the type of machine, its location, and monthly receipts gained from each. Several weapons, including a sawed-off shotgun, were seized.
So the crooks kept books in order to report and pay an income tax. Unfortunately for them, while they maintained records on lottery transactions, their worst natures came out in other money-making plans which they tried to keep secret. As a result, the treasury men have been working Phenix City for some years. In the great vacuum of hush-hush, where the government either thinks it functions best, or prefers to keep its own secrets, the department has yet to say why it reduced its force of investigators from a high of seventeen shortly after Albert Patterson's murder to less than a half-dozen within a period of weeks.
Nevertheless, the government is practically certain to slap income tax evasion warrants against more members of the fraternity. Tax liens, totaling thousands of dollars, already have been assessed against upper bracket overlords.
The Godwin Davis family, for instance, operators of the lush National Lottery and other free-wheeling enterprises, have liens filed against them amounting to approximately $60,000 as of this writing. In addition, the family owed $18,000 on a trailer park and another $15,000 to the bank. Their troubles were only beginning.
They said they had worked out a deal with the government. According to Godwin, St., the Davises agreed to pay the government $500 monthly, plus $6,000 at the end of each year until the lien was satisfied. But both Senior and Junior were charged in the clean-up with forty-four counts of operating a lottery. The state has construed that each day's operation is a separate offense.
Under Alabama law, conviction on one count carries a fine, but the judge can add up to twelve months at hard labor if he desires. Second and subsequent convictions carry mandatory jail sentences of from six to twelve months.
What the Davises were facing was forty-four years each in the state penitentiary. They didn't like the outlook.
In the first place, they figured all of their legitimate businesses would go to pot while they were in stir— even for a shorter time than forty-four years. They saw clean-up juries passing out heavy sentences and saw that the time had come for them to act. They tried to make another deal, this time with the state.
Davis, Sr, offered to serve time, to plead guilty, if the prosecution would leave his son at home to run the lawful businesses. The state would not accept.
By now, Davis, Sr. was feeling desperate enough to come to John Patterson, Jr,, Attorney General nominate, in place of his late father, to see if Patterson would intercede in his behalf.
This happened a few minutes past midnight, the morning of October 14. Patterson was in his office talking with Private Investigator Fred Bodeker of Birmingham, and one of the authors, when his telephone rang.
His wife was on the phone, giving him a number to call back. Patterson dialed the number and a man answered immediately. For a few minutes Patterson listened, then said, "Wait a minute." He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and lowered the phone,
"This is Godwin Davis," he said, looking at Bodeker. "He wants to see me about something. Should I see him?"
It was agreed that Davis should come to Patterson's office although Davis had wanted Patterson to meet in Davis' car. It took Davis not more than five minutes to arrive. Patterson told the National Guardsman at his door to search the man before he was admitted.
The pudgy, snaggled-tooth, cigar-smoking Davis kept Patterson tied up for 75 minutes. Davis didn't know that sitting in an adjoining office during the entire conversation was Bodeker, the man who had cracked much of the Alabama vote fraud case.
Amazed by the visit from Davis, Patterson promised him nothing. The following day Davis was at the courthouse, dressed in a blue suit, smoking his cigar, and awaiting the worst. He eventually was given two years, to be served after Godwin Davis, Jr. completed a sentence of eighteen months.
Davis said he never would have stuck around Phenix after the cleanup if he hadn't already been tagged by the federal government. He couldn't run out on that.
He had his own theory on the tie-up between gamblers and politicians. Most cops, he said, turn crooked because of greed or selfishness. As for politicians, he said they'd do anything to get elected and remain in office. He told of an old-time mayor who, he said, was honest except on election day,
"I wouldn't offer him a dime for nothing," Davis said in describing the mayor's integrity.
On election day, he continued, a man was arrested for voting in more than one box. He asked Davis to help him and the little gambler promised to take care of his friend. Forthwith, he went to see the mayor and inquired on what charges the man had been arrested.
"For voting more than once," the mayor declared.
"Yeah," Davis replied, "and every one of them votes was for you."
Nothing more ever was heard about the case.
The Metropolitan Lottery furnished the Davises and the Revels a luxurious living for years. The relationships between the families were complex. While all the Davises and the Revels were at one time associated in The Metropolitan Lottery, the Godwin Davis clan ran the prosperous National Lottery on Fourteenth Street from the Manhattan Cafe.. "Head" Revel and Godwin Davis had worked together on other projects until they split up, enjoying their mutual feelings of hatred, one for the other.
In later years The Metropolitan was run by Revel and George Davis, Sr. and Jr., until Revel eased both of them out, as will be described later. The National Lottery was under the guidance of Godwin Davis, Sr,, and his sons, William Robert (Bubba) Davis, and Godwin (Sonny) Davis, Jr. The partnership employed seventy writers and enjoyed a yearly gross income of nearly $1,000,000.
Just how good a living the gamblin' Davises made from their lotteries was revealed in a divorce suit brought against Bubba by his wife, Gloria Floyd Davis, in October, 1950. The case is important for another reason for it put on the public record the close ties between a city commissioner and the underworld.
Gloria Floyd Davis was the daughter of Dr. Seth Floyd, a city commissioner whose father also had been on the commission. Here was a direct family connection between a public official and a public underworld official. Revel admitted, while testifying in the case, that he was a close friend of Dr. Floyd's, too.
"I have visited Gloria's father and mother's home quite often," he told the court.
Gloria and Bubba married on May 5, 1947. After three and a half years, she filed suit for divorce, seeking $400 a month alimony. She had been married twice previously and had one child by her first husband, and one child by Bubba. To show that Bubba was easily able to pay the $400 a month, Gloria "told all" about the Davises' lottery empire; at least, she told everything she knew but even Gloria did not have access to all the bug rackets spawned by the Davis clan. The official court transcript of testimony, condensed to avoid repetition and wordiness, is given here to impart the full flavor of the Davises' prefecture. The testimony is that of Gloria, being questioned by her attorney, John Patterson:
Q. '*Have you ever worked with your husband?"
A. "Yes, I have."
Q. "Tell the court what sort of work you did for him."
A. "I worked for The National Company— the numbers racket."
Q. "Known as the lottery?"
A. "Yes."
Q. "Is he operating a lottery now?"
A. "Yes. Yes, he had me keep the books and tend to everything to see that it was working all right."
Q. "How long did you keep the books of that company?"
A. "For nearly two years."
Q. "Did you see the money come in?"
A. "Yes."
Q. "Is your husband a partner with his father, Godwin Davis, and Godwin Davis, Jr.?"
A. "Yes."
(Gloria testified her husband also "was interested in" the 602 Club which operated a lottery', the Alabama Amusement Company, and the Manhattan Club which had a bar and operated slot machines. Gambling was the run of the mill affair in the places about which she testified.)
Q. "How much interest does your husband have in the National Company?"
A. "A one-third,"
Q, "While you were working as bookkeeper in that company, about how much money did they make?"
A. "I have seen days when the take would be from $1,000 to $1,200."
"Head" Revel, now wanted in Phenix City on fifty counts of operating a lottery and for questioning in the Patterson murder, got down to bare facts in his testimony. He said the George T. Davises received one-half of the profits of The Metropolitan while Revel and the other three Davises shared the remaining one-half. This of course, was before Revel usurped the Met.
Bubba's share of The Met amounted to $15,098.80 in 1947, Revel said, reading from official records of the company. He said Bubba received $17,216.70 the following year. Gross receipts for 1947 came to $658,190.72, according to Revel, although it is likely this figure was too small as the lottery did much better in later years and T-men have filed liens against George T. Davis for unpaid taxes.
Revel said the gross receipts the following year were $729,259.75. George Sr. and Jr. both were paid $25,825.04 from that nest egg and the other partners were given equal cuts of $17,216.70.
Revel said he knew that Bubba 's 1948 income was at least $26,000 from their joint lottery transactions.
A Phenix City lawyer, James H. Caldwell, who since the clean-up has become solicitor, testified as an expert witness in accounting. Patterson asked him if there was a method, recognized by the federal government, of determining a man's net worth from his income. Caldwell said this could be done.
"If a man earns $24,000 a year, what would you say his net worth is?" Patterson asked.
"The net worth," Caldwell said, "would depend upon the prevailing rate of interest. At the prevailing rate of interest at 6%, the capitalized net worth on an income of $25,000 per year would give a net worth of around $400,000. In other words it would take assets or assets worth $400,000 to earn $25,000 per year. That's quite often done with land and cattle, and interest in a partnership is just as much a capital asset as bonds or stock or anything."
A feud of two years' standing existed at this time between Revel and the Godwin Davis clan. Revel told of the ill feelings under cross-examination by Attorney Roy Smith, the city attorney who was representing Bubba.
"You were, for a long time, engaged in business with Godwin Davis, Sr., the father of Bubba?" Smith asked.
"That's right."
"Not only here, but away from here?"
"Yes."
"For a long number of years?*'
"That s right."
"You are not on very friendly terms with Bubba, are you?"
"Well," said Revel, "I don't have no more to do with them."
"You are not business associates any longer?"
"No."
"Your feelings toward them are not too friendly?"
"I wouldn't think so— no more than theirs toward me, I stay away from them."
"And they stay away from you?"
"And I don't have anything else to do with them, and to be frank, I don't want to have anything else to do with them."
"That's mutual, isn't it?"
"That's right."
Revel's break with Godwin Sr. and Jr. was a typical underworld affair. Revel decided he wanted to get out and told Sr. he was leaving and wanted his share of the business,
"You've got your half," Davis replied, according to Revel. "Now get out."
For the moment Revel was outnumbered and departed. At 2 a.m. on January 9, 1950, a pick-up truck with four men backed up to Davis' Manhattan Cafe. Johnnie Benefield was at the wheel. James Rush and Clarence Franklin (Shorty) Johns— both now dead— were in the party. The fourth man was thought to be Revel. They tied up the night watchman and a guest, loaded the three safes onto the truck and drove away into the night.
That was how Revel got his share.
After leaving the Godwin Davis tribe, Revel spent more of his time with George Davis, Sr., and Jr., and the three of them became the great white fathers of The Met— for a while, anyway. Revel was plotting how he could, alone, control the rackets.
He went to work on Senior, getting the old man on dope until Davis was in no condition to match wits with Revel, then he convinced Senior that Junior was stealing from the company. Out went Junior and Revel took over The Met almost completely.
Revel built The Metropolitan into a huge organization, which he ran alone the last few years before Albert Patterson was killed. He, along with the Godwin Davis outfit and the Hoyt Shepherd-Jimmy Matthews combine, was one of the few bug operators to gross over a million dollars a year on the numbers racket. Out of this income, the operators paid not only the winners but usually paid the fines and bonds and hired lawyers for their writers who were picked up by the police.
It didn't always pan out like that.
A writer for A. B. (Buck) Billingsley, operating out of The Ritz Cafe, was caught in Columbus, Georgia. "Buck" paid the bond for the writer. But when the defendant's car was seized and he was fined $1,000, "Buck" left the man alone to figure out his own problems. Daily intake at the Ritz fell off to $300 at one time but it had much better days. One writer, who worked on the usual fifteen per cent commission, said she made $30 daily, which means she would have sold some $200 a day in lottery tickets all by herself. She said she checked her daily receipts either with "Buck" or Robert Seymour.
Bad feelings, caused by the lottery, developed among the operators. Besides the Davis-Revel clambake, Shepherd and Matthews had their eye on another competitor, Pete Hargett, whose operations at one time were the largest in the area.
Working for Pete was his brother, Guy. Their lottery appeared to be hurting the Shepherd-Matthews enterprise and about the time this came to light, the Hargett home, in an alley, was raided by officers. Guy was killed. (Described in another chapter: "Murder in the Rogues' Morgue.") Pete and a friend, Sam Beck, were jailed and their lottery was busted.
There were any number of small lotteries, fly-by-night outfits always glad to make a nickel legally or illegally. Bryant P. Long ruled his from the White Swan Cafe on Moore Street. He was the first operator to be tried in the cleanup and was found guilty in its first two cases.
Another lottery, known as The Old Original, was run by E. L. (Red) Cook, now serving a life term for murder. Cook's organization headquartered in the Old Original Barbecue on Dillingham Street.
Cook's was considered the smallest of the seven "big" houses, grossing a paltry $150 to $300 daily. Cook was also a beer distributor and his red hair matched his flaming temper. On a Sunday night in 1950, Cook shot and killed John Mancil, a taxicab driver, and wounded two other men, all of whom were in the 601 Club, which Cook ran. The redhead wasn't brought to trial for any part of the fracas until the cleanup began, four years later.
Then he was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment, a sentence which he appealed. But previously the murder had been used as a weapon over his head by Chief Deputy Albert Fuller, who thereafter employed Cook as his personal errand boy to carry messages and threats for the mob, and for himself.
Going full blast on a small scale was the 602 Club. Charlie Clark Parker, Sr,, was hired by the Godwin Davises, Sr., and Jr., on September 14, 1949, to manage the 602 for them. Parker retained his position until March 15, 1954.
He would turn his receipts over to "pick-up men" from The Manhattan Cafe. Making the contact, as a rule, were either Jared Kenyon or Doris Longway. Parker did not say whether protection dough was paid for the 602 to function, but he indicated it operated with the knowledge of the city.
"At times," he said, "I have seen most every policeman on the Phenix City police force come into the 602 Club."
Parker was paid a salary of thirty-five dollars a week. In addition, he received a fifteen percent commission on lottery and twenty-five percent on all gambling machines in the club. He wasn't wondering where his next meal was coming from.
Pick-up man Kenyon is the same fellow who, according to the records, bought Bubba Davis' interest in The National in July, 1950. The sale was made retroactive to January 1, 1950. Current records list only Kenyon's name as the operator, though it remained in the space owned by the Davises above The Manhattan Cafe.
An advantage to people who liked to gamble without being bothered with details was that they didn't have to leave home to participate, Writers would come to them. Or the players, if they wished, could visit the lottery house and place their bets at the scene. The option was theirs. This anxiety to be where the action was, led to more action than was anticipated and cost the life of twenty-four players on April 21, 1938.
So many persons assembled the day before the tragedy that a portion of the Ritz Cafe, which housed The Old Reliable, caved in, injuring ten people. The next day, while bug players were awaiting the posting of the figures, the entire building collapsed. This time twenty-four persons were killed and eighty-three were hurt. While rescue workers dug out the injured, bug writers went about their business of selling tickets.
The catastrophe was the worst in the history of Phenix City. The City Commission promised to investigate but dropped the matter because witnesses were reluctant to appear at the hearing.
The bug was a hardy insect that thrived in the murky atmosphere of Phenix. When it suffered a setback for any reason, it always came back stronger than ever. One Phenix City businessman whose sporting blood prompted him to invest from ten to fifty dollars a day in bug drawings once hit lucky and picked up $6,000 on a ten dollar ticket.
The Night Roll was the steady bread-winner. From it, the gamblers always were assured of a handsome net return. It wasn't as spectacular as the big dice games, nor as amusing as watching the whirring wheels of a one-armed bandit, or the blinking lights of a pinball machine.
But it was big-time stuff, accounting for more than ten million dollars yearly and providing a good living for hundreds of persons in Phenix City and Columbus.