CRIME: Rumors of War

Last week portions of two hemispheres were stirred by rumors of a big U. S. gangland war. Prospective war zone: the operative territory of famed Racketeer Jack (“Legs”) Diamond. This territory begins in Brooklyn, N. Y., where henchmen of Diamond and Charles (“Vannie”) Higgins are blamed for periodic battles with gangs reputed to be led by Angelo (“Little Augie”) Pisano, heir to the eminence of the late Frankie Yale (TIME, July 9, 1928). Far out on the westward highways, however, speed Diamond’s trucks, delivering beer to roadhouse customers. The leader has many activities, was arrested and released for a killing last year in the Hotsy-Totsy night club, Manhattan. He is out on bail pending Federal trial for a narcotic law violation. Since his last arrest he has dwelt secluded in a mountain retreat at Acra, N. Y., where his ten-room house was guarded (until police raids) by machine-guns, is still guarded by flood lights which sweep every approach.

Bloody Car. Among Diamond’s acquaintances is one Harry (“Skunky”) Klein, 26. Last week detectives found him drunk in a Brooklyn garage once owned by “Vannie” Higgins. They arrested Klein because a Buick car in the garage had blood-splattered upholstery, contained a discharged pistol cartridge and blocks for running it over a harbor stringpiece into oblivion. Tipsy and garrulous, Klein said he was living at the Acra estate, had been wakened by strangers the previous morning at 4 a. m., told to drive the Buick to Brooklyn and find one Fred Witcher who would help him dispose of it. They were to split $50 for the job. After obtaining the blocks, he had spent his $25 on drink. Police traced the car to its owner, Proprietor Harry Western (sometimes called Weston) of the Chateau roadhouse on Lake Katrine, near Kingston, N. Y. and found Western had been missing from the establishment since two nights before.

Arsenal. Klein babbled about Fred Witcher, who lived nearby. In Witcher’s apartment, the detectives encountered James Dalton, Diamond’s chauffeur, come to take Mrs. Witcher to visit in Acra. The visit was postponed .and all present were arrested, because under a Witcher bed was discovered a terrifying gangland armory, including bullet-proof vests, “pineapple” hand-grenades, tear gas bombs, revolver ammunition, several calibres of “fountain-pen” pistols, dynamite.

Diamond v. Capone? In the police lineup Chauffeur Dalton said he had just seen his employer off for Europe on the S. S. Baltic. Newsgatherers, who already had heard rumors that Chicago’s Alphonse (“Scarface Al”) Capone planned a return to Brooklyn (his birthplace) in support of “Little Augie” Pisano, immediately conjectured that Diamond had prepared to contest the alliance by accumulating armament, by leaving the U. S. so as to be away when the shooting began. Among this and other wild, vague reasons given for expecting a Diamond-Capone war the most credible was that the Midwest roadhouse beer trade, lately an unchallenged Capone concession, had been encroached upon by Diamond’s trucks, that Capone wanted to force his rival back to Brooklyn, intended no Brooklyn attack. Mrs. Mae Western, worried wife of the missing Chateau proprietor, told police of a new, mysterious Diamond beer-running combination from which her husband, onetime intimate of the leader, had been excluded.

Dead Men. Mrs. Western testified that her husband had been summoned to the Acra estate, had gone there in his car several hours before “Skunky” Klein was known to have started in it to Brooklyn. She and the police feared Western was dead, directed a widespread search for his body, which would be evidence upon which to apprehend the legally elusive Diamond. Whether or not Western was dead, two other alleged racketeers were surely dead in Brooklyn, and two more were in hospitals, struggling to keep alive, all shot since Klein’s drunken revelations. Because of these shootings, District Attorney George E. Browers of Kings County dramatically gave all gangsters 48 hours to quitBrooklyn or be ousted. “Force will be met with force,” said he.

International. Diamond meanwhile was not to be located. Only Dalton, Klein, and Mrs. Diamond insisted he was aboard the Baltic. The Baltic’s captain radioed insistently that he was not. New York City authorities cabled his picture and history to Britain. Result: violent British excitement at the approach of a U. S. gangster famed nearly as much as “Scarface Al” Capone himself. At the height of the excitement, the S. S. Belgenland came into Plymouth, England. One of her passengers, registered as “John T. Nolan,” said he was Diamond, told newshawks: “I have stomach and liver trouble. . . . The reason of my visit is to go to Vichy and take the cure. … I only wanted to stage a fadeout. I don’t want to return to New York. … I ain’t got no house in Brooklyn and I ain’t got a chauffeur. The chauffeur belongs to my missus. . . .

“Of course I do a bit of bootlegging— it’s a business! … I don’t know anything about the arsenal. . . . What do you want to kill people for? Only boys do that.”

At Antwerp Diamond disembarked, was met by polite but firm Belgian police who hustled him across the boundary into Germany, whither his passport had been visaed.