National Affairs: Racket

Now that the electorate has been agitated to a state of anticipation, if not of excitement, by the prospective election of the 31st President, how might shrewd crooks make gain without accepting direct graft?

One way might be as follows, in simple steps:

1) Go to a printer and cause him to print a quantity of official-looking tickets for a Hoover or a Smith picnic, or both, at such-and-such amusement resorts on such-and-such days.

2) Let the tickets include a round-trip by bus, starting from a stated point.

3) Make the price for the day’s outing comparatively cheap—$2.50 or even $2.

4) Sell the tickets among eager, gullible working-folk.

5) Send no busses, have no picnic, vanish.

Such was the racket worked last week in Hudson County, N. J., bailiwick of Democratic Vice Chairman Frank Hague. Some 200 laborers and families, adherents of Nominees Hoover and Smith stood at adjacent points on a Jersey City street awaiting busses for political picnics. The men-of-the-families had paid $2 for Hoover tickets, $2.50 for Smith tickets. The day lengthened. The sun grew hot. The children made friends, played, squealed, quarreled. The men compared tickets, oaths and boredom. No busses, no picnics came to pass. All, angry, went home.