Word: extortionate
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Sir: The letters in your Jan. 21 issue of Lieut. Lerch and Mr. Ball [who angrily commented on the U.S. paying $120,000 ransom to Hungary for the release of four U.S. flyers] were very much to the point. Although only an ex-Hungarian, I felt very much ashamed for...
When his old pal, Mayor Bill O'Dwyer, made him New York's first deputy fire commissioner, Moran set out with a crusader's zeal to correct one of the city's perennial rackets: the shakedown of contractors seeking permits to install oil burners and tanks...
Evil Influence. Big Bill was never a stickler for the rules of labor etiquette. He never boggled when one of his agents, Robert Brindell, turned to full-scale labor racketeering in New York, sold "strike insurance" to contractors, peddled "privilege to work" cards to non-unionists, and cleared a cool...
Requests in the form of cables from Hong Kong signed by intermediaries were frankly blackmail. One sent to San Francisco read: "Grandfather fined $2,000 U.S. Remit money immediately or lifeless." A Boston Chinese was informed that his family was in a concentration camp-unless he paid, each member would...
Month after month, Chinese-Americans kept the extortion racket secret, not only for fear of reprisals in China but for fear that the U.S. might act against them for giving aid to an enemy. But last week Chinese-American editors and organizations such as San Francisco's Six Companies...