Graveyard Scoop

Six months ago a Polish-born reader of the Scripps-Howard Cleveland. Ohio, Press complained to City Editor Norman Shaw that he had been cheated of his savings in a scheme to buy cemetery lots. As a routine investigation, the case came to the attention of Editor Shaw's utilities reporter and crime expert, sharp-eyed young Clayton Fritchey.

Before he had gone far in what his office called the "graveyard story," Investigator Fritchey knew he had some-thing big. He found that squads of oily, smooth-tongued salesmen had combed Cleveland with tales of a great shortage of burial ground. Since everyone must die, the salesmen argued, best possible investment would be in the wholesale blocks of new cemetery plots which they were ready to furnish for cash, savings bankbooks or deposits on call at building & loan societies. Catch was that enough speculative cemeteries to bury Cleveland's dead for 200 years to come had already been laid out, but the promoters glibly promised 100% profits in 60 days. Following their trail. Investigator Fritchey discovered that the cemetery racket was cleaning up some $2,000,000 a year of gullible money drawn from Cleveland and all parts of Ohio.

After interviewing scores of victims, Fritchey carefully backed his facts with affidavits and laid them before the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury, which promptly called for the promoters' books.

Investigator Fritchey followed closely the Grand Jury's graveyard probe. One day, while looking over the subpoenaed books of the Crown Hill Cemetery, Investigator Fritchey, who is fond of detective stories, noted that a block of 1,400 graves had been sold for $82,000 to a Mr. Dacek. Into Investigator Fritchey's mind flashed the astounding possibility that this curious name might be an anagram for that of a Cleveland policeman whom he had long suspected of undue prosperity. The Cuyahoga County prosecutors shortly found that Investigator Fritchey's hunch was correct. "Dacek" was one Louis J. Cadek, a hardboiled, barrel-bellied police captain who had been 30 years on the Cleveland force. Other property and bank accounts under various names were linked to Captain Cadek, who was soon indicted and brought to trial to explain how he came by a fortune of $109,000.

At the trial a number of Cleveland's ex-bootleggers showed up to give the jury their idea of the money's source. During the palmy days of Prohibition, they testified, Captain Cadek systematically jailed every liquor dealer in his territory who failed to give him handsome, periodic bribes. So well understood was Captain Cadek's policy that on one occasion the 'leggers combined to tender the "Skipper" a pig-roast and clambake, at which they presented him with two beer kegs so stuffed with currency that it had to be stamped down before Captain Cadek could lug it away.

Last week Captain Cadek was quickly found guilty of accepting bribes, sentenced to from two to 20 years in the Ohio Penitentiary at Columbus. Captain Cadek sent out from his Cleveland cell for a sack of chewing tobacco, stoically remarked : "A good guy always gets kicked around."

The newshawk who thus scored for his city began his journalistic career with Scripps-Howard nine years ago on the Baltimore Post. By 1934 he was managing editor, and when the Post was sold to William Randolph Hearst, the Cleveland Press soon found room for Clayton Fritchey. Thirty-one, ruddy of face, blue of eye, Reporter Fritchey has recently used his spare time to improve his tennis, write a dramatization of Lion Feuchtwanger's novel The Oppermanns.

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