-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
The Breaking of a President 1974 - The Nixon Connection
Marvin Miller, Compiler
Therapy Productions, Inc.©1975
LCCCN 7481547
--[6]--
THE
DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
MODERN MOB
Elmer Irey, former Chief of the Enforcement Branch of the United States
Treasury, once commented: "I think the Treasury Department's Intelligence
Unit has the greatest crime fighting record in America. We smashed the Capone
gangs, the New York gangs; the untouchable thieves of the Huey Long and Boss
Pendergast gangs; ... in two decades we recovered over a billion dollars from
crooked tax evaders but when it came to keeping America dry, we were just
overmatched."
Actually this is a somewhat self-serving and inaccurate statement in relation
to the gangs during Prohibition. Although many individual crime leaders were
imprisoned as a result of income tax evasion prosecutions, this did not stop
their crime organizations from continuing to function. During Prohibition,
criminals involved in producing, transporting and guarding large quantities
of alcoholic beverages developed very business-like, disciplined
organizations. As these crime corporations began to invest their huge profits
in legitimate businesses, it became less and less possible to stop their
activities by jailing the leader.
The Capone gang, for example, did not disband after Al Capone was jailed; it
simply carried on under the leadership of the Fischetti brothers, the Guzik
clan and Tony Accardo. It is suspected that this group, for example, over the
years has continued the management through anonymous intermediaries and
corporations of large portions of Florida real estate purchased when Capone
was still active. When Nixon became involved in purchasing Florida real
estate through Lansky associates, suspicions were voiced by some
investigators, that Capone-owned land was involved.
Law enforcement officials, however, still keep up the pretense that criminals
basically are unstable psychological types who don't cooperate well, and when
a leader is jailed, the gang disappears. This may have been true in the past
but not today. A corporation usually does not disappear if an individual
executive is jailed. And even if the corporation is liquidated, its real
assets or activities rarely vanish into thin air but are transferred to some
other operating entity. The assets often remain secretly under the original
ownership through intricate deals arranged by creditors and financial
institutions. The modern gang, managing considerable financial investments
through its own lawyers, accountants and banks, and maintaining interlocking
business connections with other criminal organizations, has to be viewed as a
corporate entity. It is a legal individual in its own right, instead of a
haphazard collection of individuals. Law enforcement, which is based on
proving individual responsibility for crime, is therefore as helpless in
destroying a modern gang as it is in liquidating a corporation.
It is not simply a question of size. There have been large gangs.
Monk Eastman, who got the vote out for Tammany, had a gang of 1200 toughs,
complete with a junior division. But when Eastman was jailed the gang ended,
although even that far back at the turn of the century come of Eastman's
hoodlums went over to Paul Kelly's gang, which performed the same function
for Tammany. In 1913 the circulation war between the Cleveland News and the
Cleveland Plain Dealer resulted in the creation of armies of young hoodlums
who fought for control of choice street-corners. Although the circulation
managers of the competing newspapers turned out to be leading figures of
organized crime in 1951, thirty-eight years later, when they were called as
witnesses before Senator Kefauver's Crime Committee, these 1913 gangs,
organized as they were to do the bidding of such political bosses as Mark
Hanna, were not permanent formations operating with their own financial base
and well-defined corporate chain of command. But such men as Alfred "Big Al"
Polizzi, Fred Angersola, Morris "Mushy" Wexler, who started out as street
hoodlums working for Cleveland News circulator Arthur B. "Mickey" McBride,
became prominent members of Prohibition gangs.
Still later Polizzi was to do work for Nixon's closest friend, Bebe Rebozo;
Fred Angersola with his brothers John and George were later to own motels in
Miami Beach, where Nixon and his associates were to mingle -with Syndicate
figures; while Wexler and McBride were to be involved with the horse-race
wire services which also figure prominently in our later investigation of
Nixon. When questioned by the Kefauver Committee in 1951 'about his pre-World
War I associations which extended almost forty years back into the activities
of organized crime, McBride philosophically observed: "Life is just a game of
chance."
In Chicago, Big Jim Colisimo also had a gang of street toughs before 1920 to
protect his illegal enterprises and to recruit female bodies for his white
slavery operations. But Colisimo wasn't willing to change his operation to
take advantage of the new profit afforded criminals by Prohibition. He was
subsequently killed, probably by his nephew, John Torrio, or Al Capone.
Torrio was one of the first men in the United States to see that the new
times required new types of criminal organization. Torrio also made an
attempt in the early 1920's to stop the feuding between the various Chicago
gangs, but got shot up for his troubles. After a long vacation in Italy, he
turned up in New York as an elderly crime statesman urging the formation of a
National Crime Syndicate along with Meyer Lansky.
While the development toward the formation of the modern, disciplined gang
was taking place in Cleveland, Chicago and other cities where bootlegging
presented new opportunities for the criminal, it was in New York that the
first modern gang was established by Arnold Rothstein.
Rothstein was a remarkable criminal genius who bridged the gap between
unorganized crime and organized crime, between the period in which
politicians would hire criminals to get out the vote and the period in which
criminals would "hire" the politicians to protect their intricately
structured illegal businesses. Just as no one can really understand the
United States in 1974 and the pressures on Nixon without an appreciation of
the role of Meyer Lansky and organized crime, it is impossible to understand
how Meyer Lansky got where he did without appreciating how Rothstein taught a
whole generation of criminals how to use the proceeds of illegal activities
to infiltrate legitimate business and government.
ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN
Rothstein, born in 1882, was primarily a gambler and the pioneer financier of
organized crime. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel, The Great Gatsby, he
appears under the pseudonym, "Wolfsheim," the essence of socially accepted
evil in a decayed society, the man whom Gatsby identifies as the one who
fixed the World Series in 1919.
The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World's Series had
been fixed in 1,919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought
of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It
never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty
million people-with the singlemindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.
"How did he happen to do that?" I asked after a minute. "He just saw the
opportunity."
"Why isn't he in jail?"
"They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
As a boy in rebellion against his orthodox Jewish father, Rothstein played
dice and poker and matched pennies in the alleys of New York City with other
young strays. He hung around the poolrooms of the time. A "poolroom" then was
a place in which lottery tickets were sold. Lottery drawings were called
"pool." Since the drawings were not held until late in the evening, the
owners of poolrooms installed billiard tables for the convenience of their
customers in the long waiting periods.
By the time Rothstein was sixteen years old, he had accumulated $500 from
gambling in the streets and started his first moneylending at dice games. For
every $4 borrowed, $5 had to be repaid within one week. It was a precarious
business, profitable only because Monk Eastman, the favorite gang leader of
Tammany boss "Big Time" Sullivan, would collect any overdue amounts owing the
young loan shark. Rothstein had made friends with the tough strong-arm man by
hanging around Sullivan's headquarters and making himself useful by running
errands.
By 1903, when Rothstein was twenty-one years old, he had accumulated $5,000
from gambling and loan sharking, and was a silent partner in an auto agency
and a number of drugstores. By the end of 1906, his bankroll had grown to
$12,000. His bride-to-be, a young actress named Carolyn Greene, said of
Rothstein: "He was quiet, well-spoken, with a nice smile. I had no idea he
was a gambler for he looked and acted like a successful young businessman or
lawyer."
After a profitable season at the race track in Saratoga, Rothstein opened his
own gambling house in New York. Tim Sullivan, who thought Rothstein was a
bright young man with a future, agreed to extend Tammany Hall's protection to
the new venture. With his own gambling house in a respectable looking West
Forty-sixth Street brownstone, Rothstein lifted himself into a relationship
with legitimate businessmen. In one night Charles Gates, son of the man who
parlayed the invention of barbed wire into the creation of the United States
Steel Corporation, lost $40,000 playing the roulette wheel and cards at
Rothstein's. Other high stake players at Rothstein's club included Julius
Fleischmann, the yeast king; Edward Wolcott, U.S. Senator from Colorado;
Joseph Seagram, the Canadian distiller; and Percival H. Hill of the American
Tobacco Company. Hill calmly lost $250,000 to Rothstein in one night at the
roulette wheel. The poolroom hustler had become the big gambler.
Tammany Hall was still protecting Rothstein but important changes had taken
place. The free-wheeling American businessmen who had clawed their way to the
top after the American Civil War of the mid-nineteenth century—Vanderbilt,
Astor, Fisk, Drew, Gould, Morgan and Rockefellerwere being replaced in the
first fifteen years of the Twentieth Century by the large corporations they
had founded. But many people wanted the Government to regulate these
corporations in the public interest. Symbolized by Theodore Roosevelt, who
insisted on enforcement of anti-trust laws and a Pure Food and Drug Act, the
public was rebelling against the morality of those who followed Commodore
Vanderbilt's business maxim: the public be damned. And while the
corporations, through the use of clever lawyers, were usually finding
loopholes to block the would-be government regulators, there was at least the
appearance of reform.
Tammany Hall, under the leadership of Tim Sullivan's protege, Charles Murphy,
also seemed to be reforming and concentrating on legitimate business.
Actually, Tammany still needed contact with street hoodlums and wanted its
traditional income from prostitution, liquor, gambling and extortion. But
instead of functioning directly, Tammany began using the police department to
act as its intermediary with the underworld. On this basis police lieutenant,
Charles Becker, became the channel for most of the graft in New York City and
began to use this power to try to become master of Tammany instead of its
functionary. When Becker became involved in the 1912 murder of a local
gambler, for which he was ultimately convicted and executed in 1915, Charles
Murphy used the opportunity to cut down the power of the police. He turned to
Rothstein to become the man between the politicians and the criminals.
Rothstein bad already begun to occupy the role of the intermediary. By 1910
Rothstein had learned about the high premiums in the bail bond business and
had become a bondsman. It became known that Rothstein could help persons with
criminal records obtain city licenses and contracts through his relations
with Tammany Hall. And by 1913, Rothstein bad cash assets of at least
$300,000, big money at a time when a million dollars was still a legendary
amount. He began to bankroll other gamblers and was known to have extensive
business relations with politically influential financier Charles Stoneham.
Stoneham was owner of the New York Giants baseball team, numerous brokerage
houses and operator of gambling casinos in Havana, Cuba.
Rothstein had become a bookmaker for bookmakers, having opened up a discount
house for bookmaker's to layoff bets that were too big for them. Although no
one could prove that be fixed the '19 World Series, and many researchers
believe only that he profited from the knowledge that the players were
disgruntled and prepared to deliberately lose games, Rothstein was so
powerful that he was the first to be contacted about financing the scheme.
Rothstein claimed in court that he refused to participate in the scheme.
Since no one could prove otherwise, or that he profited, he was not
officially charged in the indictments.
When $5,000,000 in Liberty Bonds was stolen from Wall Street, Rothstein was
suspected of being the mastermind but Nicky Arnstein, the husband of actress
Fanny Brice, was convicted of the crime. Rothstein, however, was probably the
fence who disposed of the bonds, as they kept on turning up all over the
world to finance drug and liquor smuggling. During the 1920's, Rothstein, who
is not known to have invested in stocks other than in Loew's motion picture
securities, profited from the operation of fly by night brokerage houses
which sold worthless stocks and bonds to others.
When Prohibition came, Rothstein, a non-drinker himself, believed the country
would go along with the laws. But when bootleggers came to him to finance
liquor smuggling from Canada, Rothstein came back with a grandiose proposal
to organize smuggling from England in which he was majority partner. He
bought an ocean-going ship, used criminals who had fled to Europe to escape
U.S. prosecution to buy shipment of liquor, paid off the Coast Guard
patrolling the coastal waters of New York, and completed eleven successful
trips with his ship before he turned the business over to his associates.
Rothstein still was the financier of many bootleggers until they made enough
money to operate themselves, but he didn't want to operate a business unless
he could have full control. And Prohibition had created more smuggling than
one man could control. While Rothstein's ship was running, however, he began
smuggling uncut diamonds and narcotics, an operation which was to continue
while almost everyone else was bootlegging liquor.
Rothstein was agent for several insurance companies. Everyone he provided
bond for had to take out a life insurance policy. Rothstein was involved in
developing tract houses, and everyone who bought a house from his company
also had to be insured by him, through another company, for the amount of the
mortgage. Rothstein owned realty firms and negotiated rentals and leases for
the bootleggers whom be bankrolled. His bookmaking office continued to handle
tens of thousands each day in lay-off money from other bookmakers. He had
partnership in many cabarets and night clubs during Prohibition, which in
turn did business with Rothstein's linen and silver service.
During Prohibition many new gangs were formed and Rothstein, with his
tremendous financial leverage and dealings with all of them was the
intermediary and peacemaker when possible. When Murphy died in 1924,
Rothstein and other criminals were so wealthy that they were controlling
politicians, instead of otherwise. More precisely at this stage, the
criminals often "shared" local politicians with businessmen who had their own
need for political fixers. A prime example of this was the relationship
between the Al Capone gang in Chicago. The Chicago City Hall, and Samuel
Insull, the utilities magnate.
Insull, the former secretary to Thomas Edison, used his position with Edison
to eventually own 11 utility companies, be chairman of the board of 65
others, and director of 85 more. He had 72,000 employees in utility
operations from the Midwest to New England. Insull used the Capone gang,
among others, when he needed violence, or the threat of violence, to
accomplish his business objectives.
Through his political lawyer, Samuel A. Ettelson, Instill maintained control
over Mayor Big Bill Thompson from the top while Al Capone was exercising
influence over Thompson from the underworld.
Rothstein was an innovator. While the labor-management struggles of the
late Nineteenth Century would lead to corrupt activity by crooked labor
bosses, Rothstein introduced gangster armies. These toughs would either
protect the employer or help the unions-but always exacting tribute for
Rothstein. When New Jersey political boss Frank Hague needed help to control
the Democratic organization, Hague paid Arnold Rothstein for the use of a
gang of toughs by giving him a bookmaking monopoly in Hudson County. For
$7.50 per day, Rothstein would employ such strong-arm men as the Diamond
Brothers, Lucky Luciano, Waxey Gordon, Lepke Buchalter and Gurrah Shapiro.
By 1926, Lepke was working with Rothstein, instead of working for him as
Lepke, with Rothstein's support, began to take control of some unions after
the garment center strikes of that year. Rothstein didn't want the unions
himself; he was satisfied with the fees running into the hundreds of
thousands of dollars he was receiving from the furrier and garment workers
unions for supplying physical protection and "fixing the police" so they
would not club the unionists.
By 1925 Rothstein had hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in the
narcotics traffic. A kilogram of heroin (2.2 pounds) could be purchased in
1923 for $2,000. When cut with any powder that was suitably white and soft,
this amount of heroin would be worth $300,000 on the streets of any city in
the United States. Rothstein used the same contacts with American criminals
in Europe that he had developed when smuggling liquor for the narcotics
trade. Jacob Katzenberg, who later became a Lansky aide, was a drug supplier
for Rothstein. Rothstein also sent Sid Stajer to China, Formosa and Hong Kong
in late 1925 to make drug buys.
In 1926 he sent George Uffner to Asia for narcotics. Uffner was later to be a
buyer of drugs for Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello.
In order to smuggle the drugs into the United States, Rothstein bought a
well-established oriental import house as well as art galleries and antique
shops. Legitimate shipments of art objects to these firms easily passed
through U.S. Customs and concealed quantities of narcotics worth millions.
Rothstein owned large hotels, tenement houses in Harlem and a partner in
Wallach's clothing chain and Longchamps Restaurant. He controlled banks in
Belgium and Switzerland. Whenever there was a buck to be made, the criminals
on the scene turned to Rothstein for financing and advice, and his fertile
mind usually provided an opening to cut himself in for a substantial portion
of the profit.
But Rothstein's greatest innovation was the development of the modern mob.
Crime during Prohibition required a different, more disciplined and
business-like kind of gang than the ones that had existed before, which were
tied together by neighborhood, racial or political ties, rabble for sale to
the highest bidder at farily low prices. Rothstein knew these gangs and
gangsters and had used them. But when Rothstein hired John T. Nolan to
"settle" a strike, and then used Nolan as his personal bodyguard, Rothstein
began to realize that Nolan, better known as Legs Diamond, could be used for
his good business-head besides his ability as a cold-blooded tough.
When Rothstein became involved in bootlegging, he told Diamond to round up a
gang to protect the whisky once it arrived in the United States. This first
gang of Diamond's "rode shotgun" on the trucks carrying the smuggled whisky,
protecting the cargo from the police and other criminals. They were so
proficient that Rothstein began to rent this gang out.
By late 1921, Diamond had worked out an arrangement with Rothstein where
Rothstein would finance the gang on operations of its own and then act as
"fence," buying the loot and disposing of it. Rothstein would also supply
protection: bail bonds and lawyers.
Rothstein liked the deal. He could buy whisky from Diamond at cut-rate
prices. Diamond planned to hijack this whisky from the many amateur criminals
who were trying to make a quick buck from Prohibition. But Diamond saw that
these amateurs could not complain to the authorities and were easy prey.
Diamond's gang soon expanded to fur and silk robberies, and hijacking other
commodities. Also the gang guarded Rothstein's various enterprises for a fee.
This was the first of the really modern gangs. Later well-known gangsters
like Lucky Luciano and Dutch Schultz got their "business" training under Legs
Diamond, and gangs like the Meyer Lansky and Bugs Siegel mob became imitators.
By the time Rothstein-died in 1928, the new mobs had become independently
wealthy, the gangsters had gained control over local politicians, and the
Italian gangsters were more important than the Irish. A conference was held
and those parts of Rothstein's estate which could not be listed in a formal
will were divided. The narcotics trade went to Luciano and Lepke; bookmaking
to Frank Erickson, who operated it for Frank Costello; and the garment center
labor rackets (what Rothstein still had left) to Lepke. Frank Costello took
over Rothstein's position as the crime boss communicating with the
politicians.
THE 1932 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
How far the criminals had come was to be seen at the 1932 National Convention
of the Democratic Party held in Chicago. Because of the Depression it was
clear that one of the two rival candidates for the Democratic nomination was
going to be the next President. Al Smith, the unsuccessful nominee of 1928,
was ready to campaign again. The incumbent governor of New York, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, was also anxious for the nomination.
Tammany Hall was supporting Smith. Tammany leader Albert Marinelli
consequently was leading a pro-Smith delegation, including Lucky Luciano.
Supporting Roosevelt was New York City's West Side boss, Jimmy Hines, who had
his own delegation in Chicago including Frank Costello. Occupying his own
suite in the hotel housing the convention delegates was Meyer Lansky, who was
busy meeting with such regional Democratic Party powers as James Curley of
Boston, Huey Long of Louisiana, and Tom Pendergast of Kansas.
Organized crime bad very limited objectives at this convention, being in its
infancy. Everyone knew the days of Prohibition were numbered and there was
concern that, whoever got elected, there should be no interference with the
development of new rackets. Organized crime was not prepared to dominate the
selection of the candidate but was interested in learning more about the
national political process. In later years, the known crime lords were not to
be personally present at National political conventions. But their agents,
persons carefully groomed over many years to conceal their crime
affiliations, did play a greater and greater role. And now it is time for the
country to reflect on this development, and consider whether or not organized
crime is now playing a very significant role in running these United States.
pps 270-278
=====
captions from pix
Jack "Legs" Diamond formed a hijacking gang in 1921 to steal shipments of
whisky from amateur bootleggers. Its disciplined organization and financial
independence marked it as the first of the modern mobs.
Tony "The Enforcer" Accardo was one of the crime leaders who took over the
Capone organization in 1932. He enjoys reputation of never having spent a
night in jail. He is shown here in November, 1960 after having been sentenced
to six years in prison and a $15,000 fine for income tax evasion by Judge
Julius Hoffman. But on January 5, 1962, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed
the conviction on grounds of "prejudicial error." Accardo's second trial on
the tax charges ended with an acquital on October 3, 1962.
Al Capone (left) and U.S. Marshal Laubenheimer are shown as Capone is being
transported to prison in 1932 for income tax evasion. Despite Capone's
conviction, the organization he built continued to exist.
Alfred ("Big Al") Polizzi, one of Arthur McBride's strongarm men in 1913, is
shown as he waited to appear as a witness in hearings of the Kefauver
committee investigating crime. Polizzi later helped Nixon's friend, Bebe
Rebozo, build a shopping center in Florida.
Arthur "Mickey" McBride (left) was circulation manager of The Cleveland News
in 1913 and hired many street hoodlums to attack dealers for other papers.
Many of the Cleveland hoodlums hired by McBride continued their illegal
activity during Prohibition and were witnesses in 1951 before Senator
Kefauver's committee. On the right is McBride's attorney, Walter Gallagher,
at the Kefauver hearings.
John Angersola, a Cleveland gang member in 1913 who participated in the
newspaper circulation war, later became co-owner with Al Polizzi and Tatum
Wofford of the syndicate-con trolled Wofford Hotel in Miami. The Wofford was
the Florida headquarters for New York crime figures Frank Costello and Frank
Erickson. During Nixon's early Florida excursions, his fishing partners were
Tatum Wofford and Bebe Rebozo.
Morris "Mushy" Wexler, right, is escorted to Kefauver's Senate Crime
Investigating Committee hearings in 1951 by Jack McElveny of the Senate
Sergeant-at-arms staff Wexler, a member of the Cleveland Syndicate, was also
one of McBride's circulators and eventually became owner of a very prominent
horse race wire service used by gamblers.
Arnold Rothstein, the man who taught Twentieth Century criminals how to
organize a national syndicate.
Arnold Rothstein changed the nature of labor-management strug-gles by hiring
out armies of strong-arm men to both sides. This pre-World War I cartoon from
a labor publication shows the gangster being controlled by management.
Vaudeville entertainer Fannie Brice, the famed "Baby Snooks," was married to
Nicky Arnstein when he was accused of masterminding a series of Liberty Bond
thefts from Wall Street. When Fannie Brice heard of the charge, her reaction
was: "Mastermind! Nicky couldn't mastermind an electric bulb into a socket."
During the garment workers strikes of 1926 in New York City Arnold Rothstein
collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for supplying goons and
police protection to the highest bidder, whether this was a union or
employer. Very often the price of protection required the employer to accept
a gangster partner or brought an individual union under criminal control.
This newspaper photograph of September 13, 1926 shows part of the 600 pickets
arrested that day.
Charles F. Murphy, Tammany Hall leader, was using New York City police in
1912 as his intermediary with the criminal world. When the police tried to
control Tammany, Murphy took away their income from vice and graft by
ordering the end of open prostitution and store-front gambling. Then Murphy
selected gambler and bail bondsman Arnold Rothstein to be the contact between
the politicians and the criminal underworld.
Nicky Arnstein was accused of masterminding the theft of $5,000,000 in
negotiable Liberty Bonds during 1919 and 1920. When Arnstein declared his
innocence, Arnold Rothstein provided him with bail and the best criminal
attorney available. The FBI and many others believed that Rothstein was the
brain behind the thefts but, as usual, couldn't prove this.
Arthur "Dutch Schultz" Flegenheimer, the millionaire beer baron and mob
leader of the Prohibition period, started out by working for Arnold Rothstein
as a strong-arm man for $7.50 a day only a few years before he became
wealthy. He is shown here in 1935 immediately after a verdict of "not guilty"
was returned in his income tax trial. Later that year Schultz was killed by
decision of the national crime syndicate when the Dutchman planned to
assassinate Thomas E. Dewey, an act the crime leaders believed would bring
them unwanted publicity and undesired attention by law enforcement.
Gambler Frank Erickson seemed to have inherited Arnold Rothstein's huge
bookmaking operations but actually he was just a front for Frank Costello. In
1950 Erickson pleaded guilty to 60 counts of bookmaking and conspiracy, for
which he spent two years in jail. Erickson died in 1968 of a heart attack at
the ripe age of 72,
Louis "Lepke" Buchalter took over Rothstein's labor rackets and ultimately
gained almost total control over New York's garment and baking industries.
Lepke, with Lucky Luciano, also inherited Rothstein's multi-million dollar
narcotics smuggling operation. As the head of Murder, Inc., an enforcement
group whose origins can be traced to the 1934 national syndicate meeting,
Lepke became one of the most feared criminals in the United States until his
execution in the Sing Sing electric chair, March 4, 1944.
New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt and 1928 standard bearer, former
Governor Alfred E. Smith, were the main Presidential contenders at the 1932
Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Inez Norton, Arnold Rothstein's actress girl friend, planned to marry
Rothstein after his divorce was final. However, the very evening they
discussed these plans for marriage, Rothstein was murdered. The killing was
motivated either by Rothstein's welching on a $300,000 gambling debt or for
forcing Belgian guarantors of the millions required in his narcotics and
diamond smuggling operations to pay certain long overdue amounts which
Rothstein had failed to pay. Miss Norton is shown vacationing at Miami Beach,
Florida in 1930, two years after her sweetheart was murdered.
Huey Long, the late important Louisiana politician, met with Meyer Lansky at
the Drake Hotel during the 1932 Democratic Party National Convention. While
Frank
Tammany leader Albert Marinelli led a New York delegation committed to
selecting Alfred E. Smith as Presidential candidate at the 1932 Democratic
Convention. Marinelli's real boss, gangster Lucky Luciano, shared Marinelli's
suite at the Drake Hotel. In the 1937 photograph above, Marinelli is making
public a 19 page denial of charges by District Attorney Elect Thomas E. Dewey
that Marinelli is "an ally of thugs, pickpockets, dope peddlers and
racketeers."
Jimmy Hines, a Tammany Hall rival of Marinelli, led a Democratic Party
delegation to the 1932 National Convention supporting Franklin Roosevelt as
Presidential candidate. Sharing Hines' suite at the Drake Hotel was gangster
Frank Costello, who was introduced to Roosevelt as a New York City
businessman and substantial campaign contributor. Hines was later to be
convicted of taking regular payments from mob leader Dutch Schultz. Testimony
showed that this powerful politician got court cases dismissed, conscientious
policemen transferred and provided overall protection for the Dutchman's
$20,000,000 annual policy gambling racket in New York City.
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