Chapter IV: Part 4

During the war years, the Customs Service was responsible for the enforcement of the neutrality laws in shipping. Its officers acted also as local agents for the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, insuring vessels, cargoes and seamen against the hazards of war at sea.

When the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917, Customs agents moved quickly to seize seventy-nine German and Austrian ships in American ports. Customs officers enforced the import and export licenses issued by the War Trade Board.

Two years after the Armistice in 1918, the country was swept by the nostalgic longing for a “return to normalcy”--and Warren G. Harding was installed in the White House. But there was nothing normal about the 1920s for the Customs Service. Its agents were to become involved in fighting the greatest wave of smuggling the nation had known since the days of Jean Laffite.

6

BOOZE AND BRIBES

Lawrence Fleishman had gone to sea at the age of sixteen, when most youths his age hadn’t yet put on long pants. He had enlisted in the Navy and served in convoy duty on the Atlantic in the final months of World War I. When the armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany, he had decided to remain in the Navy and he had achieved the rating of Chief Petty Officer. Still, he had no desire to spend the rest of his life at sea. When the opportunity had come, he had applied for a job with the Customs Service. He had been accepted after passing the Civil Service examinations.

Sodus Point had seemed a quiet enough haven. It was a resort center and coal shipping port on Lake Ontario, only a few miles removed from Rochester. The people were friendly and the work was pleasant. He had expected to remain for some time undisturbed, getting accustomed to the idea that his roving days were over.

Then an official-looking letter had arrived--marked “Confidential”--and within a few hours Fleishman was enroute to New York City under orders to tell no one of his destination. He was to report to Customs Agent Gregory O’Keefe in Room 501 at the Prince George Hotel.

Fleishman checked into his room at the hotel and then called O’Keefe. “Come to my room as soon as you can,” O’Keefe said. “We’re waiting for you.”

When Fleishman went to the room, he was introduced by O’Keefe to a deputy collector of customs and to another young employee named Frank Gallagher.

“We called you two down here,” O’Keefe said, “because you are new in the Service and no one around here knows you--not even the Customs people.”

O’Keefe explained that the Customs Service was under fire in Congress. Rep. Fiorello La Guardia had charged that the Port of New York was so “wide open” that a circus could be smuggled past Customs officers and New York City port authorities. He claimed that bribery and corruption were rampant in the administration of the debonair Mayor “Jimmy” Walker, and that illicit whiskey was pouring into the city. He demanded that something be done about a scandalous situation.

La Guardia’s charges had stirred Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon to order an immediate inquiry. Customs officials had denied that conditions were as bad as La Guardia said they were. Nevertheless O’Keefe was directed by his superiors to undertake an investigation.

Fleishman got the impression in this meeting that the Customs people honestly believed that an investigation would clear the Service’s skirts and prove La Guardia to be wrong. Many apparently felt that the accusations were based more on political inspiration than on facts.

O’Keefe said, “You two are being assigned to the Special Agency Service. Everything is arranged for you to report for duty day after tomorrow as Customs guards on the North River piers. When you get your uniforms, badges, buttons and insignia, I’ll give you more specific instructions.”

Fleishman and Gallagher were assigned to work as partners on the piers handling the cargoes of the trans-Atlantic liners. In less than a week each was accepted as “one of the boys” and they listened to Customs guards, inspectors, stevedores, seamen and other waterfront employees openly discussing their success in smuggling liquor and other merchandise from incoming ships. The standard pay-off for permitting a case of whiskey to cross the pier unmolested was $1 per bottle.

They sat in on smuggling plans and watched the pay-offs being made. They accepted their share of the money--and then met in secrecy to mark the bills to be used as evidence in court. In only eighteen working days these two alone had gathered evidence of corruption involving twenty-three Customs and city waterfront employees.

Instead of proving La Guardia wrong, they found that his charges only touched the surface of a serious breakdown in law enforcement. They found that many waterfront workers were merely the tools of the mobsters. Whiskey smuggling was big business and the pay-offs were tempting to government employees whose average pay in the 1920s was less than $100 a month. Customs inspectors were earning only $4 a day and pier guards $75 a month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics had reported that the minimum salary on which a family could live decently was $2,260 a year--or $1,124 more than the average government wage. Forty per cent of the Customs employees in New York worked at night at whatever they could find to supplement their pay. The conditions were ripe for corrupting influences to flourish.

One night Fleishman and Gallagher were standing guard at Pier 57 aboard the French lineship _DeGrasse_. An underworld tipster had reported that the ship carried 1,500 cases of liquor which were to be smuggled ashore that evening. As they stood on the stern deck of the ship, a man dressed as a longshoreman walked up to Gallagher and asked for a light. Gallagher handed him a match and as the man touched the flame to his cigarette, the two agents saw well-manicured fingers and the gleam of a large diamond ring. Then they recognized their visitor as a hoodlum known as “Mike the Barber.” Whenever there was a waterfront murder at that time, the name of Mike the Barber was certain to be mentioned sooner or later in the police list of those to be questioned.

Mike the Barber had said suddenly to Gallagher, “You’re a new man, aren’t you?”

Gallagher said that he was, and the hoodlum said, “Where do you come from?”

Gallagher replied, “I’ve been working as a subclerk at the post office over in Paterson, New Jersey.”

Mike the Barber nodded. “Is that so? I happen to have a good friend over at Paterson. He is the assistant postmaster over there. You know his name, don’t you?”

Gallagher was evasive. He began to make excuses for not being able to recall the assistant postmaster’s name. Mike the Barber growled, “Oh, yeah? Look, you son-of-a-bitch, you forget everything you see here tonight or you’re liable to get killed.” And with that the hoodlum walked off into the darkness.

Fleishman and Gallagher knew their usefulness was over. Within minutes every member of the gang on the pier would know they were officers. Fleishman said to Gallagher, “You walk down the pier and walk down the middle of it--don’t get to the side where there is any cargo or anything else. Walk right down the middle in clear sight. I’m going after a taxi.”

Fleishman luckily was able to hail a cab, and he and Gallagher jumped in. As the cab wheeled from the pier a black sedan roared from the shadows to give chase. The frightened taxi driver finally shook off their pursuers and Fleishman and Gallagher returned to their rooming house.

The information they had gathered was turned over to the Department of Justice and prosecutions were begun. The crackdown didn’t halt the smuggling by any means, but it was a jolt to the underworld.

Then, on August 30, 1928, Lawrence Fleishman sat at his desk fingering a letter which the mailman had left at his office a few minutes earlier. The letter was postmarked Washington, D. C., and across the front was written the word “Confidential.”

Slowly he tore open the letter and began reading:

Sir:

You will report at the earliest date possible to Detroit, Michigan.
As soon as you arrive in Detroit, you will register at the Barlum
Hotel.... You are to work strictly undercover and you are to report
to me daily by mail as to your findings.

You will report any dishonesty or irregularity on the part of any
Customs employee, securing wherever possible such evidence as is
obtainable....

(Signed) _Elmer J. Lewis_

Fleishman tossed the letter onto his desk and felt the excitement building up inside. The order really came as no great surprise, although he knew that it would be something of a shock for his wife to learn they were leaving immediately for Detroit. Their plans for the future hadn’t included any sudden, mysterious journeys to a city neither of them had ever visited before.

Fleishman knew the assignment would be dangerous. Yet he saw no reason why he shouldn’t take his bride along. He could rent an apartment and the stay in Detroit could be pleasant for both of them as long as business was separated from their home life.

This wasn’t an era for Fleishman or anyone else to be surprised over reports of graft and corruption in law enforcement. The papers were full of stories of prohibition agents and other officers being involved with gangsters in liquor smuggling. If Congress wasn’t ordering an investigation of a breakdown in law enforcement, others were. Bootlegging and racketeering had grown to be a multi-million-dollar industry. It was hardly surprising that an underpaid police officer was tempted when he could make $100 merely by looking the other way while a cargo of liquor was being unloaded.

There were times when Fleishman and his fellow agents were not proud of their agency. But the Customs Service was by no means the only enforcement agency tainted by crooks and weaklings. There was corruption rampant throughout the United States. The Federal government itself was only beginning to recover from the shocking scandals in the administration of President Harding. It was all a part of the revolution in manners and morals which had swept the country after the close of World War I. It seemed after the war that the vast majority of the citizens of the United States were eager for prohibition. Congress had voted overwhelmingly for the Nineteenth Amendment to establish prohibition throughout the United States. The dry forces had easily won ratification of the amendment when it was placed before the various states.

Then came the revolt. As soon as Congress passed the Volstead Act, to enforce the prohibition amendment, the country developed a prodigious thirst. Bootlegging became one of the country’s major industries. Revenue from the sale of illegal whiskey provided mobsters with unbelievably rich treasuries. It made millionaires out of bums. The gangsters were better armed, better disciplined, and better organized than the average law enforcement agency throughout the country. The cynicism of the period was summed up by Franklin P. Adams, who wrote in the New York _World_:

Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It’s left a trail of graft and slime,
It’s filled our land with vice and crime.
It don’t prohibit worth a dime,
Nevertheless we’re for it.

In Chicago, the pudgy gangster named Al Capone fashioned a crime empire from the profits made on smuggled booze, prostitution and other rackets. At one time he and his mob controlled--literally--the city of Cicero outside of Chicago. They elected its officials, controlled the appointment of police officers, and dictated the affairs of the entire community, with the threat of the Thompson submachine gun to enforce their rulings. City governments--and even the Federal government at times--seemed powerless to cope with the marauders.

In Detroit the Purple Gang came to power, and among the major hoodlums was a man named Pete Licovoli, whose name usually cropped up whenever there was a gangland murder, violence, or a report of widespread corruption. He was a man whom Lawrence Fleishman would get to know well.

This was the state of affairs in September, 1928, when Fleishman and his wife loaded their belongings into their shiny new Model A Ford sedan and set out for Detroit.

On arriving in Detroit, they registered at the Barlum Hotel as Supervising Agent Elmer Lewis had instructed. The following morning Fleishman went to Lewis’ room in the hotel to be briefed on his mission. He was eager to meet Lewis, who was one of the Bureau’s veteran agents with a reputation for being tough, honest and efficient.

Lewis answered Fleishman’s knock on his door. He took Fleishman’s hand and Fleishman felt like a schoolboy as he looked at the big, broad-shouldered, sandy-haired man who towered above him. Lewis was 6 feet 4 inches of bone and muscle.

Lewis introduced Fleishman to Sumner C. Sleeper, the chief of the Detroit Customs Patrol. He was a man of medium height who had spent many years in the Service. The glasses he wore gave him the look of a schoolteacher.

Quickly Lewis got down to business and sketched the assignment Fleishman was to undertake: There were rumors, true beyond doubt, that some members of the Customs Patrol were deeply involved with the gangsters in smuggling whiskey into Detroit. The situation had reached the point where something had to be done to check the bribery and corruption, but there could be no effective prosecution until the Bureau had solid evidence that bribes were being offered and accepted.

Lewis explained that arrangements had been made for Fleishman to join the Patrol as a rookie. If offered bribes, he was to accept them and make a record of the serial numbers of the bills. He was to report daily in writing to Lewis, detailing everything that happened, along with the names of those involved in any wrongdoing. Only four men knew of his assignment--and he was to discuss his activities only with them. The four were Lewis, Sleeper and two assistant collectors.

“We hope,” Lewis said, “that within three months you can get enough evidence to break this thing wide open.”

It was agreed that as a “cover” Fleishman would tell anyone who was curious that after leaving the Navy he had found a job as bookkeeper for a large New York State gambling syndicate but the syndicate had been broken up by police, forcing him to find another job. The story sounded reasonable enough, because the newspapers had carried stories that summer of a big gambling combine which had been smashed by New York State police.

At the close of the conference, Lewis gave Fleishman a final bit of advice: “If you ever think they are suspicious of you, get to a safe place fast--and call me.”

Within a few days, Fleishman and his wife were settled in a modest apartment on Van Dyke Street not far from Detroit’s main downtown section. And on September 22, 1928, Fleishman reported for duty at the Customs Patrol headquarters at the foot of DuBois Street on the Detroit River. The Patrol offices were in an old wooden building enclosed by a high wire fence. There was an adjoining garage and a slip for the patrol boats alongside a boat repair shop. In addition to the office, there was a squad room for the patrolmen, where each of them had a locker.

During his first week on the job, Fleishman knew he was being watched with suspicion. He was never given an assignment with any of the night patrols. Each morning he was assigned to headquarters duty--which meant sweeping out the offices, tending the coal fires, carrying out ashes, filling cars with gas and oil, and sprinkling water on the sand pile in the front yard to prevent the sand from blowing into the offices.

At odd moments, Fleishman sat around watching the older men shoot craps in the locker room and joining in their talk. Slowly the wall of suspicion began to crumble, and during the second week he was assigned to a 12 midnight to 8 A.M. patrol with a senior officer named Raleigh Hampshire, a big, flabby man who looked as though he slept in his uniform.

In the first hours of the night they drove aimlessly along Woodward Avenue, parking occasionally to get a cup of coffee at an all-night restaurant, or just to sit and watch the traffic. From time to time, Hampshire questioned Fleishman about his background. Fleishman told him of his years in the Navy and his experiences in strange ports of the world. He even confided to Hampshire that he had been a bookkeeper for the New York State gambling syndicate--but this job had blown up when the police smashed the operation.

“Maybe you heard about it,” Fleishman said. “It was in all the papers.”

Hampshire obviously was impressed. “Yeah,” he said, “I read about that.”

This conversation apparently resolved any doubts that Hampshire had about his companion. After a time he said, “Let’s go see what we can find.” He wheeled the car from the curb and drove to a residential area which Fleishman later learned was the Lake St. Clair section, a respectable neighborhood of attractive homes.

Hampshire drove into the driveway of a large house with a tree-shaded lawn, and Fleishman assumed they were going to visit one of Hampshire’s friends. He followed Hampshire to the door, and when he knocked a man’s voice said, “Come in.”

They stepped through the door into a scene that Fleishman would always remember as one of the strangest he had ever witnessed. Stacked to the ceiling in what should have been the living room were cases of whiskey and sacks of ale. On an overturned beer keg sat a man cleaning a pistol. Six other men, using an overturned crate for a table, were playing blackjack. A young woman stood watching the gamblers while sipping from a bottle of ale.

No one showed any surprise at the appearance of the two uniformed officers. They only glanced at Fleishman and nodded when Hampshire introduced him as a new man on the job.

“Have a drink?” their host said.

“I’ll take a bottle of ale,” Hampshire said.

Fleishman nodded. “I’ll take the same.”

The hoodlum took a knife from his pocket and flipped open a blade. He ripped one of the sacks and took out two bottles. When he opened them, the warm ale spewed out on the floor. They sat and chatted for several minutes and then Hampshire signalled it was time to go. They bid everyone goodnight and returned to their car. As they drove from the house, Hampshire said, “It isn’t everybody that would give a new guy a break like this.”

“What do you mean, a break?” Fleishman asked.

“I mean introducing you to the guys back there,” Hampshire said. “You never can tell when you might be working with a special agent. But I figure you’re all right.”

“Thanks,” Fleishman said dryly. “I appreciate it more than you know.”

This was the break Fleishman had been waiting for. He knew that he had passed the first test and he figured that Hampshire now would pass the word to others that he was “okay.” When he returned home that morning he wrote a long report of the night’s events and mailed it to Elmer Lewis at the Barlum Hotel.

And then his reports became more and more interesting....

October 1, 1928. (Fleishman reported that he had made friends with
a patrolman named Bill Tompkins, who lived only a few streets
beyond his apartment. He became friendly by giving Tompkins a ride
home after work.) Tompkins opened up wide this morning. He said:
“Don’t let any of these guys give you the runaround. If you see
them talking to bootleggers and they don’t let you in on it, or if
they leave their boats or cars or act suspicious in any manner, you
can be sure they are getting theirs and you are not. Just don’t let
them put anything over on you. Every time they make a run it is
good for a hundred each.”...

October 10, 1928. I reported for duty at base at 1 A.M. Detailed
to land patrol with Inspector G. Slater.... Our first stop was at
the foot of Orange Street in Wyandotte where the picket boat was
tied up ... Slater talked to O’Rourke while I drove to a restaurant
at Slater’s request. When I returned ... Slater said, “Well, it’s
all fixed. We ought to be good for $125 apiece tonight.”... We
drove down to the foot of 23rd Street and parked the car and went
to sleep.... We woke up at 6:15 and a bootlegger named Hamilton
came along. He said, “Is it all right to work?” Slater said,
“Yes.”... He then told us he would see us around 8:30. We then
left from the foot of 23rd Street and went to a restaurant on West
Fort Street and had coffee. Left and drove over to the foot of
Orange Street and Wyandotte. We were there about 7 o’clock. Bill
O’Rourke ... handed Slater a roll of bills. Slater walked over
to the picket boat and another boat was tied up there having a
propeller fixed.... All I saw of this transaction was O’Rourke
giving Slater a roll of bills. We then drove down to the River
Rouge. In the car Slater gave me a roll of bills and said, “Count
it.” I did and found $50. At the River Rouge we went to Peajack’s.
We met his lieutenant who got out of a car, came over, and dropped
a roll of bills in Slater’s lap.... After driving away Slater gave
me another roll of bills containing $50. Slater said, “I bet you
feel funny going into the base carrying $100.” I admitted that I
did feel uncomfortable. Slater gave me quite a bit of interesting
data. The night’s pay-off when they work the River Rouge is $970.
They all work at once and the boat crews and the land crews must
all be fixed. In addition Border Patrol must occasionally be
fixed, nightwatchmen and policemen must be fixed, and recently
the prohibition agents have to be paid off to discontinue their
activities on the river. Slater also told me a number of fellows
were very suspicious of me.... I said, “Why are they so suspicious
of a new man every time?” Slater said, “Because every new man
might be a special agent or a DJ (Department of Justice) man. But
even if you are a special agent you are as guilty as I am because
you have taken money too.”... Near 23rd Street Slater turned up a
side street.... Then I saw Hamilton rounding the corner. He came
over to the car and dropped a roll of bills in my lap. I handed
it to Slater when we drove off.... This made $115 for my share of
the evening’s profit. (Each bill Fleishman received he listed in
his report giving the denomination and serial number of each.)...
Returned to base at 10 A.M. and made out report: “No activities
noted.” Slater made out a similar report....

By mid-November, Fleishman had been admitted to membership in the Patrol’s crooked inner circle. He was automatically included in the pay-offs made by the mobsters. He had found many of the patrolmen were honest men--but they were helpless with so many avenues for rumrunning left open around them.

Occasionally, Fleishman slipped at night into the Barlum Hotel to discuss the progress of the investigation with Elmer Lewis. The evidence of graft and corruption was piling up daily, yet Fleishman was troubled because he hadn’t been able to link the pay-offs to any of the higher-ups in the rumrunning syndicates.

“You’re doing all right,” Lewis assured him. “Just be sure you don’t get into any trouble.”

Fleishman said, “There’s one guy in this racket I would like to nail--Pete Licavoli. He’s responsible for a big part of this mess.”

Lewis nodded. “You’re not likely to get close to Licavoli. He plays it smart.”

Then one night Fleishman was detailed to the land patrol with Patrolmen James Mack and Shell Miller. They climbed into a Buick coach with Miller at the wheel and Miller headed the car out Fort Street to Military Road.

“Where are we going?” Mack asked.

Miller said, “I’ve found something worthwhile that I want to show you.”

He turned onto Jefferson Avenue and after a time he drove slowly by a lumber yard beside a railroad track. “That’s it,” he said. “I got a tip they’re handling booze in there by the carload. But they don’t ship it until it’s watered down. We’ll come back later and pay them a visit.”

The three men rode aimlessly around Ecorse until mid-morning and then Mack drove back to the lumber yard. They walked into a building where several men were making boxes. Suddenly Mack said, “Here comes a friend of mine.”

Fleishman saw a big, handsome man emerge from an office. He recognized him instantly from his pictures. He was Pete Licavoli, and very plainly Licavoli was upset.

“For God’s sake,” the hoodlum said in disgust, “where did you come from?”

“We just thought we’d pay you a visit,” Mack said. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

“Beat it,” Licavoli snarled. “Beat it and I’ll fix you later.”

Mack said, “Okay, boys, let’s get out of here.”

As they drove from the lumber yard, Mack said, “This thing is too good to put off. I’ll arrange for us to see Pete tonight.”

* * * * *

It was 5:40 when Mack and Miller picked up Fleishman at his apartment. They drove to Jefferson Avenue, where Mack parked the car. They walked down a long alley and Mack knocked on a door. They were admitted into an elaborately furnished restaurant which proved to be the private restaurant and hangout of Licavoli and his mob. The furnishings were in excellent taste. There were leather lounging chairs, a bar and the general atmosphere of a country club. Licavoli was seated at a table with one of his lieutenants, Sam Georges. He waved his visitors into seats.

Fleishman left the talking to Mack and Miller as they discussed how much Licavoli should pay to operate unmolested at the lumber yard shipping plant.

“This is the first time we’ve worked in a week,” Georges complained, “and we’re losing money.”

Miller said, “Do you expect me to cry for you?”

The discussion continued through dinner and several rounds of drinks. Finally it was agreed Licavoli should pay $400 a week to be left alone. The mobster pulled out a fat wallet, counted out the money, and handed it to Mack. He stood up and put his hand on Fleishman’s shoulder. “You boys come around any time,” he said. “The drinks are on the house.” And then he left.

In dividing the $400 pay-off, it was agreed that Fleishman would receive $110 and Mack and Miller $120 each, with $50 to be paid to the tipster who had pointed out the Licavoli operation to Mack. The money was divided as the men sat at the table.

In the days that followed, Fleishman’s letters to Lewis were filled with reports of gangster pay-offs. The evidence piled up so rapidly that officials of the Treasury and Justice Departments, Customs Service, and the Prohibition Bureau met in Washington to discuss when and how a crackdown should be made. Elmer Lewis was called from Detroit to take part in the conference.

Lewis urged the conference to keep a tight lid of secrecy on the meeting. He warned that any disclosure that a Customs agent was working undercover in Detroit would be certain to endanger Fleishman’s life. Sooner or later the hoodlums would discover he was an undercover man--and the Purple Gang gunmen would be after him.

But such news is difficult to keep bottled up in Washington. Part of the story, at least, was leaked to reporters. The following morning newspapers were carrying reports that a “big case” was expected to break soon over bribery and whiskey smuggling in Detroit. There was speculation, too, that a shakeup was coming in the Customs Patrol.

When Lewis read these reports, he arranged to take a train back to Detroit. He knew the news stories would be telegraphed to the Detroit newspapers.

At midnight on November 18, Fleishman reported for duty as usual. He was assigned to a patrol with two inspectors to cover the customary run along the River Rouge and the Wyandotte area. They visited the usual haunts, looking for any of the hoodlums who might be seeking an “all clear” signal for moving their whiskey across the river. None of them at the time had read the dispatches from Washington printed in the Detroit newspaper.

Shortly before dawn, the three men stopped in a Wyandotte restaurant for a bowl of soup and a sandwich. The restaurant was operated by Joe Rosen, one of the mobsters, and after a while Rosen came to the table. He whispered into the ear of one of the patrolmen and then hurried from the room.

“What’s going on?” Fleishman asked. “Are we going to get some action?”

The inspector said, “Finish your sandwich and let’s get out of here.”

When they returned to the car, the inspector said, “Joe says at least three undercover men are working on the force and they’ve put the finger on about forty men. The mob is trying to find out who the stool pigeons are. Nothing’s going to move until they do.”

For the next two hours, Fleishman’s companions talked of little else except the bribes they had turned down, and how honest they had been. Fleishman knew their talk was solely for his benefit. They were not good enough actors to conceal their anxiety.

When they finally stopped at a restaurant for a cup of coffee, Fleishman excused himself on the pretext that he had to call his wife. Instead he called the Barlum Hotel and asked for Elmer Lewis.

Lewis answered the phone. Fleishman explained what had happened. “This doesn’t look good to me, Mr. Lewis,” he said.

Lewis said, “Your job’s finished. Now go home and pack your things. Get over here with your wife as fast as you can. You’ll both be safer here.”

Fleishman moved with his wife into the Barlum Hotel and only then did she learn of the role her husband had been playing for more than two months. A few days later, they slipped from the hotel and headed back East in their Model A Ford.

On November 30, eighteen hoodlums were arrested, along with nineteen patrolmen. Two-score other patrolmen resigned. The cleanup was a newspaper sensation.

Pete Licavoli was among those sentenced to prison. The mob leader over the years had escaped conviction on charges ranging from sluggings to murders. But this time he pleaded guilty to bribing a Federal officer. He was fined $1,000 and sentenced to two years in Leavenworth prison.

While Fleishman was uncovering the evidence to convict Licavoli and the others in Detroit, another young agent--Chester A. Emerick--was making some interesting discoveries on the West Coast. A big, easy-going man, Emerick had developed sources which disclosed to him that much of the liquor bootlegged on the Pacific Coast was being shipped by a combine of Canadian liquor interests. Emerick learned that the Canadian liquor interests had formed the Pacific Forwarding Company of British Columbia to exploit the American liquor market. The company loaded its whiskey on ships at Vancouver for shipment ostensibly to Papeete, Tahiti. Once the liquor arrived in Tahiti, the Tahitian customs bond was cancelled and the shippers were not required to pay taxes on the liquor exported. Then the liquor was moved from Papeete to Rum Row off Southern California, off Long Beach and off the Washington coast. Rum Row was the nickname given by newspapers to the line of ships which stood at anchor in international waters, three miles offshore and just out of reach of U.S. maritime jurisdiction.

The Canadians did not merely bring the liquor to Rum Row. They had a well-organized force of salesmen operating in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle, selling whiskey to bootleggers and guaranteeing delivery on a wholesale basis. The money collected by these salesmen was deposited in several banks along the Pacific Coast to the credit of the “Gulf Investment Company”--a company owned and controlled by the Canadian liquor interest. No one knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars in profit was realized by the Canadian conspiracy.

Emerick doggedly followed up the original leads obtained during prohibition and pressed for Federal action against the Canadian liquor dealers. In the spring of 1934--two years after the repeal of prohibition--two officers of the Canadian interests, Henry and George Reifel, arrived in Seattle. They were placed under arrest. The warrants had been issued secretly, and only four or five Customs officials knew of the action that had been taken. Service was obtained on warrants against the corporation which they represented, and a Federal action was brought in the District Court at Seattle, Washington. Before the case was concluded the Canadian interests had agreed to settle all liabilities by paying the U.S. government $3 million. This payment was accepted by the government and the case was closed.

There never were and perhaps there never will be again smuggling operations of such a magnitude as those which developed during the days of prohibition. Booze leaked across the borders from Canada and Mexico in streams. High-powered speedboats brought cases of liquor from supply ships riding at anchor in international waters. The Coast Guard and Customs were engaged at times in a shooting war with the rumrunners, and in the Detroit area alone, Customs had thirty speedboats engaged in around-the-clock blockade operations.

No authoritative study is available on how many ships and boats were engaged in rumrunning during the Twenties. But it was a formidable fleet, and there had been nothing quite like it since the blockade runners assembled their fleet to challenge the Union’s blockade of the South during the Civil War.

One of the largest hauls of bootleg alcohol made by Customs came in 1926 with the seizure of the freighter _Cretan_, which was found to be carrying more than 70,000 gallons of Belgian alcohol easily worth $4 million on the retail bootleg market.

The _Cretan_ was purchased by a “front” man for a group of Philadelphia and New York racketeers. Early in 1926, the _Cretan_ steamed to the Bay of Fundy, where it made a rendezvous with the British ship the _Herald_. The _Herald_’s cargo of alcohol, a total of seven hundred 100-gallon drums, was transferred to the hold of the _Cretan_. Then several tons of baled waste paper were piled on top of the drums to conceal them in case the ship was boarded by Coast Guard or Customs officers.

The _Cretan_ headed for Philadelphia with its valuable cargo of 190-proof spirits, but the mobsters weren’t satisfied with the arrangements for unloading the cargo in Philadelphia. A message was sent to the _Cretan_’s captain ordering him to proceed to Boston and take on more baled waste paper. A decision would be made later on where to unload the alcohol.

The _Cretan_ steamed into Boston harbor on schedule and tied up at an isolated pier. It began to take on more waste paper, with no one suspecting its true cargo. But a Customs officer observed several well-dressed men coming and going from the ship. He also noticed that two strange automobiles, both bearing New York license plates, were parked nearby. And he began to wonder what it was aboard the vessel that would bring the strangers all the way from New York to Boston--men who didn’t seem to be seafaring types.

He reported his suspicion to Deputy Collector of Customs Thomas F. Finnegan. Finnegan decided to send a special duty squad aboard the ship to determine the nature of the ship’s cargo. The squad boarded the _Cretan_ but found they could not get into the holds. However, when they entered a coal bunker next to the holds, they detected the unmistakable odor of alcohol.

Finnegan ordered an immediate halt to the loading of waste paper. He posted guards at the gangway to prevent anyone from leaving the ship, and arranged for a lightering firm to unload the bales of waste paper from one hold. When the paper was removed, the drums of alcohol were uncovered. The _Cretan_ and its cargo were forfeited to the government and sold at public auction. The alcohol was sold to drug companies which had Federal permits to dispense alcohol.

Some of the rumrunning craft were equipped with armor plate and bullet-proof glass around the pilot house area. They had underwater exhaust mufflers installed in order to slide silently through the water at night and evade the Coast Guard and Customs patrols. Most of them had two high-speed motors, each with a shaft and propeller. The conversion work on the boats was done by the rumrunners themselves or by small boat builders.

The _Whatzis_, operating out of Rhode Island, was believed to be the first rumrunning speedboat with four high-speed motors--two in tandem in each engine bed with a reduction gear between the motors. Each set of motors had one shaft and one propeller. This powerful craft was seized by the Coast Guard off the Massachusetts coast and later was inspected by several naval architects interested in its unusual power plant. Some insist to this day that the _Whatzis_ was the craft that gave naval designers their idea for the rugged crash boats used at seaplane bases, and later for the PT boats which won renown in World War II.

The Twenties was a time of violence and turmoil for all the nation. And no agency of the government was more actively involved than the Customs Service, which, with other agencies, had the impossible task of trying to throw up a dike against the flow of illegal whiskey into the United States. Many good men tried, honestly and diligently, to enforce the law. But the great majority of the people simply didn’t want prohibition.

In this period, Customs developed a tough and experienced corps of law enforcement agents and supervisors who were to serve the country well in future years.

7

THE ENFORCERS

Customs now has 240 special agents who police the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico coastlines and the borders between Mexico and Canada. Their work is supported by 487 Customs enforcement officers (port patrolmen) and 2,551 Customs inspectors and supervisors.

Pressures for a special investigative force to combat smuggling and fraud developed after the Civil War, when normal trade was resumed between the United States and other nations of the world. Violations of the Tariff Act and a loose morality in administrative offices became so flagrant in those postwar years that in May, 1870, Congress passed a law providing: “The Secretary of the Treasury may appoint special agents, not exceeding 53 in number, for the purpose of making examinations of the books, papers and accounts of Collectors and other officers of the Customs, and to be employed generally under the direction of the Secretary, in the prevention and detection of frauds on the Customs revenue....”

With this act, the Secretary of the Treasury gathered under his direction for the first time a special police force to combat smuggling and frauds.

The need for such a force actually dated back to the first days of the Republic. But over the years, the enforcement work had been handled by inspectors, guards and other untrained personnel. In 1922 Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon transferred the Special Agency Service from his personal direction to the Customs Administration, which was then a division of the Treasury Department. In 1927, the Customs Division was given the status of a bureau by Congress, with direct control over its own investigative force.

This force now operates under a Division of Investigations, headed by the veteran enforcement officer Chester A. Emerick, former Collector of Internal Revenue in Tacoma, Washington, who joined the Customs Service in 1920. Emerick has the title of Deputy Commissioner, and he is responsible to the Commissioner of Customs in the operation of his division.

The responsibilities of the Customs agents were not clearly defined in the early days of their operation. But a clear directive was issued in 1933 to dispel any lingering doubts. This directive read: “(a) Customs agents shall be employed generally in the prevention and detection of frauds on the Customs revenue and all matters involving such frauds requiring investigation shall be referred to them. They shall investigate and report upon all matters brought to their attention by the Commissioner of Customs, Collectors, Appraisers, Comptrollers, and others relating to drawback, undervaluation, smuggling, personnel, Customs procedure, and any other Customs matters.

“(b) undivided responsibility for the investigation and reporting to the proper authority of all irregularities concerning any phase of Customs administration or misconduct on the part of Customs employees, by whatever means brought to its attention, rests with the Customs Agency Service. This injunction, however, is not to be construed as abridging or modifying the responsibility of the principal field officers to maintain discipline and efficiency in the Customs personnel. There shall be no differentiation in the treatment of chief administrative officers of Customs and their subordinates in the matter of investigating accusations of alleged official misconduct. Collectors and other chief officers of the Customs shall cooperate in making this policy effective.”

* * * * *

Jerome Dolan is a handsome, black-haired young Irishman. It was, literally, a swift and embarrassing kick in the pants which started him on the road to becoming a Treasury agent.

It began for Dolan when he was a twelve-year-old living on Selby Avenue in the Lexington Parkway area of St. Paul, Minnesota. The street was a quiet, comfortable, tree-shaded thoroughfare lined with the homes of middle-income families. The Dolan home was near a shopping center and only a brisk walk from the neighborhood school.

There were playgrounds not far distant and vacant lots where youngsters could play baseball after school and during vacations. But in the perverse way of small boys, Dolan and his pals found it more fun to play ball on the streets, much to the annoyance of the residents and Officer “Red” Schwartz, who frequently cruised through the area in Patrol Car 309.

Schwartz was a large, muscular man standing 6 feet 2. He was forever breaking up the ball games with gruff commands for the boys to get off the streets. If there was any backtalk, Schwartz was likely to box the ears of the impertinent rebel, or to boot him in the behind. Then he would growl that he wasn’t going to have anyone killed by an automobile on his beat if he could help it.

Dolan and his friends usually kept a sharp lookout for Schwartz, the enemy. But one day they were careless and Car 309 came rolling down the street into the midst of a noisy game. Officer Schwartz came boiling from behind the wheel of the car. He laid two heavy hands on Dolan and another youth who hadn’t been nimble enough to escape. He shook them until their teeth rattled and then he booted them in the backsides with the broadside of a large shoe--just hard enough to give emphasis to his words.

“Maybe that will teach you a lesson,” Officer Schwartz called to the retreating youths. “And don’t let me catch you again.”

It never occurred to Schwartz to complain to the youths’ parents. This was his beat. It was his responsibility to maintain law and order, and to protect the lives of those in his charge. He also felt it was his duty to discipline the youths who showed a lack of proper respect for authority.

“I’ll get even with that red-headed cop,” Dolan vowed. “Just you wait and see.”

“How are you goin’ to get even?” his friend asked.

Dolan considered the problem. At last he said, “Well, I’m going to be a policeman and when I’m his boss, I’ll fix him.”

As a sophomore in high school, Dolan had forgotten his vow to “fix” Schwartz, even though he often looked from the window of his classroom to see Car 309 cruising by the schoolyard. But he had not lost his determination to become a law enforcement officer. In writing down his ambition for the class yearbook, he wrote: “I want to be a Federal law enforcement officer.”

One reason Dolan had fixed his sights on a career in Federal law enforcement was the fact that the father of his friend, Sam Hardy, Jr., was an FBI agent. Sam Hardy occasionally came to the school and talked to the students about the work of the FBI. These talks only strengthened his desire to become a Federal agent.

After graduating from high school in the spring of 1950, Dolan entered the Army. He was assigned to the Army’s security section and he travelled throughout the Far East as a courier. When he was mustered out of the service, he enrolled in St. Thomas College in St. Paul and worked part time as an investigator for business firms.

He was graduated from St. Thomas in 1958 and became chief security officer for the Golden Rule Department Store in St. Paul. Then he joined the city’s police department.

One morning Dolan reported for roll call at the main police headquarters in the Public Safety Building. After inspection the lieutenant read off the list of assignments for the day. He said, “Dolan, you will work Car 309 with Officer Schwartz.”

Dolan climbed into the car beside Schwartz and all the old memories came flooding back of how he once hated this gruff policeman who had booted him in the pants. He remembered wryly his vow to one day get revenge.

Now “Red” Schwartz’s hair was sprinkled with gray. He was heavier and the lines on his face were deeper. His hands, though, were just as big and powerful as Dolan had remembered, and he had the same stern air of authority about him.

Dolan said nothing about the remembered indignities, and the older man apparently did not recognize the rookie as one of the youngsters who had given him such a bad time out on Selby Avenue. He could not know, either, that he had had such a strong influence on the youth who sat beside him.

They made their rounds without incident that day until late in the afternoon when the car radio said: “Car 309 ... Hague and Dunlap ... a child has been struck by a car....”

Schwartz picked up the transmitter and said: “309 to Hague and Dunlap ... 4:05.” He swung the car toward the scene of the accident. A little girl lay beside the curb, and her weeping mother was wiping blood from her daughter’s face with a cloth. The child had darted from the curb into the path of an automobile. There had been a screech of brakes and the girl had been hurled to the curb, unconscious.

As Dolan recalled the scene later in talking to me: “Schwartz, as big as he was, was out of the car ahead of me. He went straight to the little girl and her mother and I never would have believed those big hands could be so gentle. He soothed the mother with a few words, and when he saw the girl wasn’t seriously hurt, he picked her up in his arms and carried her into her home as though she were his own daughter.”

Then Dolan added, “I was very proud of Schwartz that day and of being his partner in Car 309.”

Twelve years after receiving the kick in the pants from Schwartz, Dolan was among the students selected to attend the Treasury Department’s Law Enforcement School at 711 12th Street in downtown Washington, D. C. He finally had decided to become a Secret Service agent, and now he was receiving basic training with rookie agents from the Customs Bureau, the Narcotics Bureau, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and units of the Internal Revenue Service.

Watching these young men in training, you wondered what it was that moved each of them to choose Federal law enforcement as a career. The work is difficult and demanding, calling for stern self-discipline. The hours are long, irregular and often filled with danger. No agent ever knows when he may be called from his home on an emergency assignment which may last for weeks. The pay, ranging from $5,355 per year for a rookie to a high of $10,255 for a veteran agent (only the supervising agents receive higher pay) is not exactly an economic bonanza for a college graduate. Salary is not the primary inducement; many of the youths have wanted to be in law enforcement since childhood.

One youth told me, “My father was shot and killed by a bootlegger when I was just a boy. I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I’ve always wanted to be in law enforcement to help fight crime.”

“I like the excitement of the work,” another said, “never knowing from one day to the next what the problem will be or how it will be solved.”

“I didn’t have much chance for advancement as a city policeman, but it’s different as a Federal agent.”

“There’s no politics in Federal law enforcement--not like you find in local law enforcement. You don’t have to worry about the politicians.”

A good many of the rookie agents who come to the school studied police administration in college and then worked on city police forces before taking the Civil Service examination required of candidates for Federal law enforcement jobs.

When an applicant passes the examination, his name goes on the Federal Registry, and it is from this registry that most of the new agents are chosen. Regional boards composed of representatives from the various Treasury divisions interview the applicants as openings occur from time to time in the agents’ ranks. Customs may need a Spanish-speaking agent for duty on the Mexican border. Narcotics may be looking for a man of Italian ancestry who speaks Sicilian fluently. Or Revenue may be searching for an investigator with a knowledge of accounting.

If an applicant wins approval on the regional board, his background is investigated and he is given a physical examination. If all goes well, he is sworn into the service of his choice.

The rookie agents spend their first months in service receiving on-the-job training by working with experienced officers. Then they are sent to the Treasury’s Law Enforcement School for six weeks of study in basic courses such as how to make searches and seizures, how to conduct a surveillance, how to plan a raid, how to photograph the scene of a crime, how to take latent fingerprints, how to interview witnesses and interrogate suspects, and how to conduct themselves in a courtroom under cross-examination.

The Treasury school was established permanently in Washington in 1951 and has now graduated more than 15,000 agents. It is headed by Director Patrick O’Carroll, a forty-two-year-old former Narcotics agent who was reared in New York City. O’Carroll was graduated from Fordham University in 1944, where he majored in psychology. Dark-haired, handsome Pat O’Carroll guides a staff of fifty instructors, who give the basic training to rookies and also instruct veteran agents in specialized courses involving administrative duties. At present the school is conducting six 6-week courses a year for rookies, with an average of eighty students in each class. There also are a scattering of foreign students, sent by their governments to study American police methods.

O’Carroll and his aides strive to make the instruction as realistic as possible by providing problems which simulate actual situations the young agents will face in their everyday work. In the 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. classes, held five days a week, the men spend about half their time working on practical law enforcement problems. The other half is spent in listening to lectures by agents, police administrators, college professors and attorneys. The lectures cover such subjects as constitutional law, civil rights and rules of criminal law procedure.

Toward the end of the course, the students are divided into squads of five men and given the problem of arresting a suspected criminal, searching his apartment for evidence, preparing the case for presentation to a grand jury, and appearing in court as witnesses.

On the fourth floor of the school building is a furnished room in which have been hidden narcotics, counterfeit money, betting slips, jewels and other incriminating evidence. The room is occupied by a veteran agent posing as “Richard Roe,” the suspected criminal.

Roe gives them a rough time. He complains of a serious heart condition and asks to be given medicine from a bottle on a table. He accuses the agents of stealing money and a diamond ring from a desk drawer. He continually demands to see his lawyer. A postman delivers a registered letter and Roe challenges the right of the agents to open the letter after he has signed for it. He tries everything short of violence to impede the search.

Sometimes the young agents refuse to give Roe his medicine. They ignore his accusations of theft. Or they accept his argument that they have no right to seize the registered letter.