Volume 18 , Issue 16

1916, Breaking the New York Gangs

Looking back to November, 1916, we found this news article written by Frederic J. Haskin, for the Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier, Ottumwa, Iowa, dated 17 November 1916, Friday, page 3: "Breaking the New York Gangs" (The gunman and His Works).

New York, Nov. 14, 1916 -- These were lean days in gangland. Never had so many of the leading lights of New York's underworld found themselves unwilling guests of the state. Owen Madden, boss of the famous gang known by his name, and one of the most powerful criminal leaders of the town, was doing twenty years. Ten or more of the jungle gang were behind the bars and leading members of the Hudson Dusters, the Corcoran Roost gang, the Bob Walker gang, the Williamsburg Savages, the Golden eagles, the Pansy gang, the Slaughter House gang, the Sucker Bills, the Rats and the Pearl Buttons were in jail,mostly for long bits.

Many of these gangs were indeed little more than brave memories then. And for most of the gangsters who remained at large, times were exceedingly hard. Carrying a gun in New York was getting to be so hazardous that it hardly paid. The old town dance hall rackets were becoming painfully tame and ordinary, not to mention the fact that they were no longer so profitable. Dope selling was beset by new and distressing difficulties.

So gangland was passing through a crisis in its career. Many of the gangsters were finding their New York headquarters so untenable that they were moving to nearby places on the Jersey coast, to the great distress of small town police chiefs. But pickings were slim outside of the big town. The most humiliating thing of all had happened. Many a once self respecting gangster had to go to work for living. The price had positive knowledge of a number of such unusual cases and they were helping these men all they could., for a gangster holding down a job was better than one behind the bars.

This unusual state of stress in one of New York's oldest professional circles was due to a special campaign against the gangs, which had been inaugurated by the present police administration under Commissioner Arthur Woods. The campaign consists, in the first place, of an effort to eliminate the political element from the gangland problem. This was a delicate matter and a delicate subject to discuss. Suffice ti to say that the gangster was a professional repeater; he considered it a poor election day that he does not vote a dozen times. he was also a bully at the polls and made a profession of staging those little raids which afford an opportunity for stuffing ballot boxes. And so it happened that when he was caught, he was not always convicted and when convicted he sometimes got a surprisingly short sentence.

Anyone in touch with gangland would admit that there was a change. Such a knowing one would tell you that when some gangster was about to get a short bit, the commissioner often goes to ihefront; somebody got called down and the short bit became a long one. Translate it to suit yourself. Probably no one was claiming that all the politics had been taken out of gangland, but there was reason to believe that the gang leader was finding his political affiliations were not the crutch to his injured fortunes which they once were.

The second element in the campaign against gangland took the form of two well organized squads, totaling between twenty and thirty men, who devote all of their time to the problem of uprooting the criminal organizations. In this connection, meet Sergeant Jimmie Finn, leader of the largest gang squad and chief field officer of the campaign. Sergeant Finn was a slender blonde youth, neatly dressed and softly spoken. He was thirty-four years old and looked nearly ten years less. By his own statement he was born on the east side and knew all the gangs and gangsters before he joined the force twelve years before. And according to common report, both within and without the department, his middle name was battle.

Sergeant Finn probably new more about there strange ways and personalities of New York gangland than any other man in New York. Also he observed that publicity made gangsters. If these newspaper fellows didn't write so much about the gunmen, he thought there wouldn't be so many gunmen to write about. So don't let this account tempt you to a life of crime.

IN spite of all the front page space that had been devoted tot he more spectacular gang crimes, the place of these unique organizations in New York society had probably never been clearly set forth in print. For a place in the social organization they undoubtedly had. They exist in response to a demand; the roots of their being ramify throughout the complicated strata of the city's life and that was what made them so hard to combat.

The political activities of the New York gangster had been set forth above. He was also the Hessian int he battle between capital and labor. Both sides used him and used him regularly. The gang leader was a criminal with a talent for organization and enough nerve to dominate cowards, who could deliver a certain number of strong arm or gunmen at call. In addition to these activities, the gangster was a professional murderer and would kill at the behest of anyone who made the inducement strong enough. These were the chief services of the gangster to society. On his own account he was a white salver, a merchant of cocaine or opium, often a petty usurer and made both a business and a pleasure of his rackets or balls, which were the most typical phase of gang life. A racket was usually given by one gang or one gang leader. Tickets were sold to small shop keepers and other persons who were afraid to refuse to buy them. Also, the members of other friendly gangs came as a tribute to the leader; and the members of hostile gangs attend on errands of vengeance. At the rackets, gangland congregates, fights it duels, follows its loves and incidentally added a few dollars to its income.

Such was gangland's way of living. Contrary to popular opinion, most of its members were not thieves in the usual sense, unless they were unable to get enough money by these easier, safer and as it were, more conventional methods. Most of the gangs, to be sure, included some pickpockets and when needy, a gang leader would stick up a gambling hall, dive, or other place of doubtful repute, the proprietor of which dare not squeal. But the gangster preferred his regular professional ways of making a living.

Sergeant Finn estimated that there were four thousand gangsters in and about New York, mostly about not in. At the present time of 1916 it was probable that over a thousand of these were in confinement, a large number of others were rusticating in nearby states and quite a few were working for a living. The rest were the subject of incessant attentions from the gang squad.

Since the gangster was primarily a professional thug and murderer, the methods of campaigning against him were primarily two. In the first place, every effort was made to take his weapons away from him and jail him for carrying them. In the second place, every resource os police and detective method and ingenuity was brought to bear on the solution of murder cases. Not a few of New York's unsolved murder mysteries were well planned gangster killings. To make murder a more hazardous business was one of the surest ways of breaking the gangs. The regular work of the gang squad consisted in visiting the dance halls, saloons and restaurants where gangland gathered, and in searching the inmates, one and all, for weapons. The revolver was, of course, the gangster's chief reliance, and most of his killings were perpetrated with it. He was generally a poor shot and tried to get within five or six feet of his victim and shoot him in the back. Usually he turned his own head away as he pulled the trigger. In a word, his method was that of a dub and a coward. But he had a sure, animal cunning in planning his assault. Always there were half a dozen or more who shoot, so that it was difficult to prove which one did the killing, who was the aggressor, or anything else about the fracas. After the shooting, which took place very quickly, the gangster nearly always threw away his gun and the hat he was wearing, put on another that had been concealed about his person, made a short run through alleys or over housetops and reappears as a respectable citizen.

It would seem an easy matter to disarm gangland by continual search, and undoubtedly great progress had been made in this way. The increased number of pen knife settings on the place blotters showed that gangster was losing his weapons. But again his cunning came to the fore. A leader nearly always had a subordinate to carry his gun, so that the man who was most wanted was hard to get. Often the subordinate was a woman and when it came to concealing things about her person a woman had well known advantages. For example, when Tavalachi, the Italian gangster went to a racket for the express purpose of killing a rival, he took with him a girl named Dolan, who was very pretty and elaborately dressed. The detectives had word that that there was to be killing at this racket. They stood at the door and searched every gangster as he went in. Not a gun was found. They did not search the women, but they noted that Mary Dolan carried a large muff.

Now there were two stairways leading up to the all. When Tavalachi and his girl and passed in a detective ran up the opposite stairway and down the other, intercepting the gunman. The girl was just handing him a large revolver out of her muff. Tavalachi got two years and nine months.

Such was the routine business of getting the gunman's gun. Catching him at work was another matter and how it was done would be set forth in later articles.
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