INVESTIGATIONS: Texas Pleasure Dome

When the Texas legislature’s “little Kefauver committee” began snuffling about in search of scofflaws, it turned almost automatically on the Gulf Coast’s island city of Galveston (pop. 65,000)—always one of the widest-open towns in the U.S. But Galveston’s politicos and gamblers betrayed neither the sheepish guilt, the sullen defiance nor the outraged innocence commonly shown by victims.

When questioned last week, they pitched on a bland, evangelistic tone, something like devotees of yoga telling a police judge why they had assumed the Lotus Position on a public street. Maceo & Co., Galveston’s biggest gamblers, voluntarily shut the town down. And 15 of its 16 partners (some of whom belong to the chamber of commerce) refused to talk for fear of selfincrimination. But Top Partner Sam Serio, when promised immunity, spent days proudly telling the committee all about their empire. Sam, it became quite obvious, had civic pride.

Renaissance. In the 50 years since a hurricane all but knocked Galveston off the map (5,000 people were killed, thousands maimed), the town had staged a remarkable comeback. It is not only the chief port for Texas cotton and Texas sulphur but—by virtue of its beaches and its tolerance—the state’s leading hot weather resort, convention city and playground. The Maceo brothers, Sam and Rose (for Rosario), two dark, big-nosed Sicilian-born barbers who became Prohibition rumrunners, were among the leading spirits of this renaissance.

The Maceos became top dogs of Galveston’s illegal enterprises during the noisy era of Prohibition, and quietly expanded into the gambling field with a series of increasingly lush “clubs.” They kept things quiet, and Galveston, which has a remarkable tolerance for slot machines, bars and bordellos, left them strictly to their own devices. Only the Texas Rangers tried to give them trouble. But the Maceos’ biggest enterprise, the Balinese Room, is built at the end of a pier; liquor and gambling apparatus had a way of disappearing before the Rangers got in. When the coppers appeared, the band struck up The Eyes of Texas, and the head waiter strode up to give them a hearty, if overly triumphant welcome.

By the time Sam Maceo died of cancer recently, the Maceos were civic figures, big businessmen, heavy contributors to charities. This year, Serio estimated, their firm was grossing more than $3,500,000.

Regulation. When questioned about this completely illegal setup, Galveston’s public officials made it known that they were stout defenders of the freedom to drink and gamble. Said ex-Police Commissioner Walter L. Johnson: “Galveston was wide open before I was born. It was wide open when I came into office, and I left it wide open. The people of Galveston want an open town.” Ambrose Lukovich, his successor, added: “As a reformer … I don’t think I would have been elected.” When the committee asked Mayor Herbert Y. Cartwright what it should recommend, he answered: “Regulated prostitution, liquor by the drink and gambling.”

Sheriff Frank L. Biaggne had a simple explanation for the fact that he had never raided the Balinese Room: “I go to the man at the desk and say, ‘How about getting in?’ He says, ‘Nothing doing.’ You see … I’m not a member.” It seemed like a good bet that freewheeling Galveston—which dates back to Pirate Jean Lafitte—would go right on being Galveston, whether the legislature liked it or not.