CORRUPTION: In Philadelphia

Hectic headlines have been announcing a politico-criminal upheaval in Philadelphia. Following is an account of actual developments up to last week:

Murders. In the early hours of a Philadelphia morning three men with shotguns murdered a hunchback, a month ago. He was weazened, four-foot Hughie McLoon, 27, saloon keeper, prizefight manager, onetime mascot of the Philadelphia Athletics. Standing beneath a street lamp, he made an easy target. The assassins whizzed away into darkness.

A week later, Daniel O’Leary, gangster, was spending a night with his mistress. Five men entered their rendezvous. They fired a salvo into the sleeping O’Leary. The woman went away with them.

Gangs. Judge Edwin 0. Lewis of Quarter Sessions Court charged the Grand Jury. With District Attorney John Monaghan, he started an investigation of the crimes.* They learned of three Philadelphia liquor gangs: 1) the pioneer, potent Duffys; 2) the antagonistic O’Leary’s; 3) the American Blackies.

Hunchback McLoon was a Duffy man.

The murder of Daniel O’Leary, one of four ganging brothers, seemed to be a retaliatory measure from Duffy headquarters. But the hearing of testimony germane to the murders gave way before the information of a stream of truck drivers, brewery bosses, alcohol dealers and other nondescript employees of what began to loom with increasing clarity as a monster liquor ring in the Philadelphia underworld.

Figures. Paramount figures in the inquiry have been Max (“Boo Boo”) Hoff, sports promoter and alleged bootleg tsar; Louis R. Elfman, onetime lieutenant of Hoff’s who has turned State’s evidence; Edward S. Goldberg, whose “Military Sales Co.” sold machine guns and bulletproof vests to Hoff and others.

Evidence. District Attorney Monaghan pondered the welter of evidence. He loosed many suggestive statements to the press. Three wheelbarrow loads of bootleggers’ accounts were found in Hoff’s former offices, where the racketeers operated in the guise of an investment company. They showed that in five months a single distilling plant had paid $29,400 in police bribery. Monthly bribes of $800 were recorded as paid to one police official, while another received $10,000 in one month. Said Mr. Monaghan, “I know their names . . . highest police officials have been tainted.” He estimated that the liquor traffickers had deposited $10,000,000 in local banks during the past year. Meagre-salaried police officers, he claimed, had prodigious bank accounts.

“Master Mind.” Melodramatic, Attorney Monaghan pictured a Master Mind of the liquor ring, a Kenesaw Mountain Landis of bootlegging, a racketeering Will H. Hays. “He is like a giant spider in the middle of a great web with eyes in front and behind. A man who sees everything, knows everything and controls everything in the underworld,” said Mr. Monaghan, but did not name any name. The diversion of 350,000 gallons of pure grain alcohol from Philadelphia throughout the land was described as the Master Mind’s greatest recent coup. In addition to being the upkeeper of its own 13,000 saloons and speakeasies, Philadelphia appeared as a spigot from which alcohol poured out to all parts of the country with a source of supply dwarfing even Chicago’s.

Hunting the Mystery Man, the press followed several likely figures, with “Boo Boo” Hoff’s name always to the fore. Mr. Hoff remained smilingly nonchalant. “If they get too hot,” he said, “I’m going to do a little talking. And then we’ll see what happens to Philadelphia.”

“Boo Boo.” If District Attorney Monaghan was describing “Boo Boo” Hoff without naming him—and he was—his “giant spider” simile was harsh but not inept. “Boo Boo” is a comfortably built gentleman with charming manners. He has a generous, thoughtful disposition. His taste in dressing gowns and girl friends is catholic. He is a born promoter, especially of versatile night clubs and small-time prize fights. He has at least $1,000,000 and likes to surround himself with strong-armed young men. The young men are pugilists professionally and “Boo Boo’s” boxing stable has often contained upwards of 100 likely bullies. He sends them from city to city to meet other boxers and he usually guesses or knows how each match will come out. Successful fight betting has been not the least source of the Hoff fortune. The Hoff “mob” brings him much news from far places and when the young men are not fighting he keeps them busy driving trucks and whatnot.

“Boo Boo” Hoff can sympathize with Chicago’s famed Alphonse (“Scarface Al”) Capone in the matter of the risk and privations a big promoter must suffer. Once “Boo Boo” felt it would be good for his health to spend weeks and weeks indoors. When the danger, whatever it was, had passed “Boo Boo” turned up again at his old haunt, a multi-roomed suite in a Philadelphia hotel. Once again the “mob” made whoopee. Once again “Boo Boo” played emperor among his rabelaisian underlings and generous host to out-of-town visitors. Visiting sport-writers among whom “Boo Boo” is universally popular, often received bottles of whiskey soon after they register at their Philadelphia hotels. There is never any explanation of these presents, but they have tended to increase the Hoff reputation for generosity. Few “regular guys” were glad to see “Boo Boo” land in hot water. On the other hand, few were surprised.

Action. The Grand Jury guarded its findings, acted with deliberation. Its first act was to have Charles C. Beckman, Captain of Detectives, suspended and ordered for trial before the Civil Service Commission.

History. Patently the integrity of Philadelphia’s police has been impaired since the regime of Brigadier-General Smedley Darlington (“Gimlet Eye”) Butler, Philadelphia’s Director of Public Safety from 1923 to 1925. General Butler, taking time out from a rip-snorting career in the U. S. Marine Corps, so disciplined his men and so terrorized the gangsters that before he left he had made himself unpopular also with the pleasure-loving Better Element. His farewell to the city included the charge that the then Mayor, W. Freeland Kendrick, was unwilling to disturb rich prohibition violators or alleged violators, such as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Since General Butler’s departure, Philadelphia policemen have paid as high as $1,000 for the privilege of serving on the famed Butler Enforcement Unit No. 1. Such evidence reeks of bribery.

Politics. Observers wondered what the Monaghan-Mackey excitement portended in Philadelphia politics. Mayor Mackey, District Attorney Monaghan and Judge Lewis are all creatures of the Republican machine bossed by William S. Vare. The Hon. Mackey wants to run for Governor. Perhaps the Police department clean-up was designed to “make character” for the Varists. Or, perhaps, with Boss Vare lying on a sickbed at Atlantic City, Attorney Monaghan had grown so bold as to plan to discredit the Mackey administration and at the same time make a name for himself. Such speculation seemed idle, however, in view of the fact that Mayor Mackey took office only eight months ago. He cheered Attorney Monaghan’s efforts and issued helpful orders himself. He said:

“I have every reason to believe that the investigation is on the level and has no political aspects at all. … I call upon the citizens to help the law by self-denial. If there were no drinkers there would be no bootleggers.”

Such statements by its mayor may well save Republican Philadelphia from a Federal raiding, such as was lately administered to Democratic Manhattan by the Republican Assistant U. S. Attorney General Mrs. Mabel Walter Willebrandt.

*Interesting is the attitude on prohibition of Judge Lewis, zealous investigator. “I think a beer garden,” said he, “with music and tables for a man to sit with his family and have a glass of beer or talk about politics, is not the worst place in the world. . . . Personally I am not in favor of the prohibition amendment, but officially I must be.”