Shakedown in St. Louis

In the city room of the crusading St. Louis Post-Dispatch (circ. 391,890), nothing stirs up a storm faster than a half-told story. Three years ago Veteran City Editor Sam Armstrong got just such an incomplete story from the wire services. The Air Force, said the story, had received no acceptable bids on an $11 million construction job for nearby Scott Air Force Base, although similar work was going ahead on air bases all over the U.S.

The story did not explain why no builder could do the job in the St. Louis area, so Armstrong assigned P-D Reporter Carl Baldwin, 45, to find out. Baldwin, a P-D staffer for 23 years, quickly found the reason: "St. Louis [had] become the capital of labor rackets in the construction industry."

Baldwin's spadework in exposing the rackets resulted in more than 100 stories and brought on FBI. congressional and grand-jury investigations. Last week two federal grand juries handed down a fresh batch of eight criminal indictments--bringing to 38 the number of men indicted since Reporter Baldwin began his investigation.

The Fixers. Starting with the incomplete wire service report on Scott Field, Baldwin discovered that several of the contractors had the same reason for refusing to build in the St. Louis area: "We just can't afford the payoff." The payoff was to corrupt A.F.L. building-trades union bosses and business agents. The racketeers, often in league with local subcontractors, concentrated on jobs where there was a fixed completion date, held them up with featherbedding, slowdowns and jurisdictional disputes until the completion deadline got close. Then they made themselves "available" to "fix things up" for the builder--at a price. Frightened contractors told Baldwin that those who refused to go along with the racket were often slugged or run out of town. Many who stayed and fought said that they had gone broke doing it.

When Baldwin's first P-D expose broke, contractors and honest union members flocked to him with more stories of how the rackets worked. He got one tip that an emissary for Lawrence Callanan, an ex-convict who ran the powerful A.F.L.

Steamfitters' local, tried to collect $50,000 from a contractor building a $5,000,000 pipeline. In another story Baldwin told how A.F.L. Hod Carriers' Boss Paul H. Hulahan was involved in a similar shakedown. He also dug up evidence that union "expense" money was often unaccounted for by union leaders. The zealous P-D kept firing away in Page One stories, backed up Reporter Baldwin with biting editorials and cartoons. Baldwin's notes and P-D stories were turned over to House and Senate labor committees, the FBI and the Justice Department.

The Gangsters. Finally, a grand jury launched an investigation which resulted in indictments of 15 A.F.L. leaders for racketeering. When the Justice Department's interest in continuing the investigation seemed to be waning, the P-D prodded the case to life again. A second grand jury went into action, confirmed more of the P-D's expose. Early this year four union racketeers were convicted, and sentenced to from ten to twelve years in prison. Altogether, 34 others have been indicted for everything from fraud and racketeering by extortion to perjury.

Said Operating Director James W. Connor of the St. Louis Crime Commission: "All the indictments, convictions and the investigations, which have spread to other cities, stem right back to Baldwin's . . . investigation. He has done one of the great reporting jobs of our time."

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