Word: racketeering
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...quarters of the globe with the Marines, General Butler was ''borrowed" by Philadelphia in 1924 to clean up that city's bootlegging. The hot-headed general resigned the following year, declaring that he had been made the respectable "front" for a gang of political racketeers. In 1927 he made front pages again by preferring charges of drunkenness against a Marine colonel in San Diego, Calif, following a party at the colonel's home. Four years later General Butler himself was almost court-martialed for telling a Philadelphia audience that Benito Mussolini was a murderous...
Last week he was not ready to announce the Eastern Utopians' scale of initiation fees and dues but he indignantly repudiated the idea that his plan was a racket. Said he: "I'd be ashamed of a racket that didn't pay any better than this. We get only a bare living. We all sacrifice something to serve. Being opposed to the profit system, we couldn't very well exist for the purpose of making a profit, could we? True, our revenue is considerable, but...the administration expense is heavy...
...perennial pests of West Street and Atlantic Avenue, the slouched-hat individuals who edge up and ask for a "nickel for a cup of coffee." But within the past few years, the liberality of college men has so encouraged begging on street corners that it has become a veritable racket. Indeed, careful investigation has disclosed that in some cases the men have not only asked out a bare existences, but were so contented with the results of their solicitations that they had no desire to go back to regular work again...
...June 17, 1932, Congress passed the Lindbergh Law making kidnapping across state lines a Federal felony. This act pitted the U. S. Government directly against the virulent "snatch" racket for the first time. Free from the corruption of local politics, superbly trained and equipped with tip-top morale, the Department of Justice's Division of Investigation buckled to its new and difficult work with a will. Up to last week it had acted in 31 kidnapping cases, returned alive all but one kidnappee. Of the 74 "snatchers" whom Federal agents had helped to catch and convict, two had been...
...that the majors were "attempting to destroy our very existence." On one point, however, the industry was in perfect accord last week: Federal regulation was a colossal fizzle. The overwhelming majority of the industry was ready to cooperate with Administrator Ickes in the suppressing of the festering hot oil racket. Yet after a year under the code and despite constant thunder from the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice and the Treasury, hot oil flowed freer than ever. The sole landmark in the oil badlands was the fact that the price of crude was still...