Racketeer

To Memphis, Tenn., last week, went 1,500 dyers and cleaners, delegates to the twenty-second annual convention of the National Association of Dyers and Cleaners of the U. S. & Canada. To them spoke Frank A. Weller, Sharon. Pa., president of the association. Irate, President Weller talked chiefly of racketeers, recommended that the association go on record as being "unalterably opposed" to racketeering (see Letters), and refuse association membership to any dyer and cleaner known to have racketeering connections. Dyers and cleaners feel that unjust, unfavorable comment on racketeers has gravely injured the dyeing and cleaning industry.

Racketeer. The essential step in the working of an industrial racket is the formation of an association which all the local operators in the industry are invited to join. Thus a dry cleaner might find himself invited to join a local dry cleaning association, paying this association an initiation fee and annual dues. Should he refuse to join, his house might be bombed, his place of business wrecked, his person assaulted, his life taken. Minor forms of pressure would be the hurling of stench bombs, or the introduction of acids or explosives into his cleaning fluids. Should the dry cleaner join the association, he would probably soon be informed that higher prices were to be charged for dyeing and cleaning, but that the association was to get most of the difference between the new and old price.

Chicago. With a soil fertile for racketeering, Chicago offers an excellent recent specimen of a well-grown and perfectly-formed dry cleaning racket. An organization known as the Chicago Master Cleaners' and Dyers' Association had acquired almost a monopoly in Chicago dyeing and cleaning. Members paid a $500 initiation fee and put up a $5,000 bond as a "guarantee of good faith." Bombing, slugging, sabotage, strike-fomenting and other standard methods were used to secure membership; eventually 92 members were lined up. They paid the association a general levy of 2% of gross business. There was also a subordinate organization comprising some 10,000 "little fellows"--i.e., the small neighborhood dyers and cleaners to whom the general public brought its suits, dresses.

Eventually some of the "little fellows" broke away, started a central cleaning establishment of their own, provoked a racket war featured by the introduction of caustic soda containing sodium nitrate in the seams and lapels of garments which, when cleaned, exploded. Then the main racket organization found itself with another war--this time with a prominent dyer and cleaner whom the association had forced out of business. This cleaner, one Morris Becker, opened up again with a new partner. The partner was famed Alphonse ("Scarface Al") Capone, expert in bootlegging and other rackets. Partner Capone has many good friends in Cicero, lawless Chicago suburb; no one was going to beat him, to bomb his place of business. The association did, however, try peaceful measures, inaugurated a price-cutting war which is still going on.

Cut Rates. Thus racketeering in the dyeing and cleaning business; thus a sample racket. The National Association, meeting in Memphis, in addition to denouncing racketeering (another organization, the National Alliance of Wholesale Cleaners and Dyers has also been active in the fight on rackets) also worried about price-cutting. Dry cleaning prices vary; in and around Manhattan there is a "standard" price of $1.50 for a man's suit. In many an eastern city there are also "Dollar Cleaners" operating at a $1 price. In the West and Southwest, however price-cutting has reached the slashing stage. There are places where one can have a suit cleaned for 35-c- and two suits cleaned for 36-c-. "Regular" dry cleaners feel that price-cutting has much aided the racketeer by its paralyzing effect on the legitimate profits of legitimate business.