Word: extort
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...monopolistic International Boxing Club (dissolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in January). Last week, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles handed down an indictment that lumped together Gibson and Carbo, plus a dull-eyed Philadelphia thug named Blinky Palermo and two lesser Los Angeles musclemen. Main charges: extortion and conspiracy to extort...
...system supplants the aging fallacy that examinations can extort conclusive proof of a student's achievement in a given field of knowledge with the more reasonable supposition that a carefully considered essay on the reading in a course provides a better measure of the learning absorbed...
...Using the titles and ranks of the Chinese secret societies and tongs, the gangs have a "tiger general" who hands collections to a "grass sandal," who passes them to a "white fan." Led into battle by the "tiger generals," the secret societies beat up little boys on the streets, extort money from other youths who don't belong, and fight rival gangs with knives and clubs. In the past six weeks there has been a sudden upsurge in violence, with 51 gang fights and six murders...
...white male teachers had been hit by a Negro pupil, School Superintendent James A. Hazlett finally brought the mess into the open. The story, as Hazlett and his teachers told it, was one of basic hooliganism aggravated by racial friction. Strong-armed bullies of both races extort nickels and dimes from young whites and Negroes alike. But when an argument starts, the races close ranks. "A fight might not be caused by racial issues in the beginning," said Hazlett, "but before it is over, you have a white-Negro problem...
...Manhattan's Lower East Side, John Dioguardi used to extort his spending money by tipping over pushcarts until harried street peddlers paid him to lay off. Payoffs got bigger later on, but essentially Johnny Dio remained a pushcart upsetter. Many a New York City 'trucking firm decided that it would be cheaper to slip a Dio mobster a few grand than to get stink bombs hurled into trucks or emery powder sneaked into motor oil. In recent years, armed with "paper local" labor-union charters obtained with the friendly conspiracy of Teamster Big Wheel Jimmy Hoffa, Dio collected...