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| F iction B:o—l—(s PART 7. ’— —¢§HE racket and its entrepreneur, the racketeer, are not the modern creations of the current inventive era. The words “rack- et” and “racketeer” may be newly coined, but the enterprise, regarded as something up to date in organized crime, has a long genealogy. It is a noisy, violent way of '3 easy money on a large sc2le. the scar-faced factotum of Middle cketland, is generally accorded the nable distinction of having introduced the r:cket to America in diversified and fright- ful forms. However, history robs him of that dist'nction, leaving him with only the hor- rendous repute of having made the racket pay in a large way. He put the racket on its feet, and thet is about all that can be said for him. Obviously, it is enough. He accepts the honor mc” " ond without apnavent foor of suffering for Cus..ute historical truths distribute the origin of the racket on a modern pattern to several early sources, none of which was able to elevate his calling to a point where it paralleled or even remotely approached the combined earning power of American racketeers, who take in yearly a sum estimated at $7,000,000,000—in round but alarming figures. . little office on a by-street in early nireteenth century Paris a strikingly tall man ‘ust past 40 sat in self-commiseration. He was rather splendidly attired in drab knee breeche:, white silk stockings and shoes with large silver buckles. His face had a strange pear shape, his ears were pierced with slender golden rings and beneath bushy brows steel- gray eyes glistened. For all the sparkle, he was worried. His name was Eugene Francois Vidocq; the time 1810 and the worry was his job. It was a peculiar job. Vidocq, the son of an Arras baker, had stolen money from the patrons of his father's bakeshop and had become so in- corrigible that long before he was of adult age he was a prisoner in French galleys and forts— from which he invariably escaped, usually in the garb of a nun. The French police, unable to keep him in jail, offered him his pardon if he would become a secret agent and rid Paris of its professional criminals. He accepted and the hard bargain- ing Gallic police gave him French money equivalent to $5 a month for agreeing to catch 80 many criminals each month. Failing to at- The Swundwy Star Magasine WASHINGTON, >D. C;, OCTOBER 12, 1930. New Hands a7 O/d Be He Artichoke King or Beer Baron, There’s Little New in the Racketeer’s Game—He Follows Lines L.aid Down in the Early 1800s by a French Police ““Agent.” By Howard McLellan. tain this minimum, he was to go back to the gaileys for life. That was the arrangement that was worrying him. He had cleaned Paris of its cut-throats and thieves and there was no work left for him by whi¢h he might produce the minimum num- ber of offenders and avoid the rotting galleys. He had about him 20 assistants—thieves and murderers with whom he had served in the forts and galleys. He called them police agents. They had to be kept busy or he went back to the hulks. They had also to be kept busy, or, as so frequently happens among banded cut- throats, they might turn against him. Presently black letters appeared on the door of M. Vidocq's office spelling the words, “Trade Protective Society.” His worries dwindled after that. His 20 brigadiers were always busy. They caught a margin well beyond the minimum number of thieves required to keep him out of Bociety. Attentively and with sympathy M. Vidocq listened to the complaints of victims and then pointed to the sign on the door. “It has been my privilege,” he explained, “to form this estimable society for the protection of harassed tradesmen. You are invited to join, and M’'sieur, I assure you that after joining you will suffer no more. For you, a small merchant—let us see—a reasonable fee for membership will be 10 francs a month, in ad- vance, of course. If the fee was not paid, violence was visited apon the non-members of M. Vidocq's protective organization. Those who paid enjoyed com- plete protection against brigandage and assault. What happened behind the scenes, of course, was this: M. Vidocq gave to his brigadiers a list of persons and places not included on the society membership rolis and they were at- tacked by the brigadiers, who later picked up L CAPONE, said to have introduced the racket to America, had many predecessors in the game, Howard McLellan points out in this story. What he did was to make the racket pay in a large way. “Obscure historical truths distribute the origin of the racket on a modern pat- tern to several early sources, none of which was able to elevate his calling o a point where it paralelled or even remotely approachd the combined earn- . ing power of American racketeers, who take in yearly a sum estimated at $7,000,000,000.” prison. But Paris shopkeepers suffered from pillage, bodily injury and threats of extinction. The milk, butter and egg venders complained to the police of depredations. Foul smelling liquids were thrown upon their wares, acid was poured upon their goods, sabots were tossed into their machinery and the throats of their work animals were cut. The regular police forwarded these com- plaints to M. Vidocq. He dispatched his brigadiers, now called the “surete,” to catch the thieves and miscreants. Invariably they brought back men who, they said, were the trouble-makers—and these were sent to prison. But thievery and sabotage continued. N their tours of inquiry the brigadiers whispered into the ears of tradesmen that if they wanted to be entirely free of trouble they might quietly eall on the Trade Protective innocent men and jailed them for the crimes. His society flourished and his control of Paris crime was complete. The revenue from his society put him in the lists of the moderately well to do. Today he is credited throughout the world with the distinction of having been the world’s first professional police detective. While he may have been all of this, he com- bined his secret police work with racketeering on the basis now considered modern. Today his Trade Protective Society would be classified as a “simon pure” racket—the sale of protec- tion from criminal attack. Modern replicas of his system are the hun- dreds of gang-controlled organizations among the cleaners and dyers, butter, egg and milk dealers, contractors, taxi drivers, wet wask laundrymen and other tradesmen. These asso- ciations are managed by so-called “big shots,* or racketeers, and effectively manned by gun- -Features Puzzles 24 PAGES. Rackets men, gangsters, horse poisoners, “pineapple” tossers, acid throwers and killers. One refine- ment has been added by the modern ridcketeer, Instead of accepting fees for protection, as M. Vidocq did, the “muscle” into the business they protect and become part or full owners. Capone’s “Manager-Owned Stores, Inc.,” char- tered in Chicago two years ago, bears close re= . semblance to M. Vidocq's society. d In the careers of M. Vidocq and his modern prototypes there is one striking "dissimilarity, He went to jail for his racketeering, was bam ished from France and ended his days in Eng= land lecturing sanctimoniously on the futility of crime as a career. Today's racketeers do very little going to jail, but much traveling between their own town houses and country places, with annual trips in style to European watering places, from which they return in the pink of condition and ready for a pros- perous season. Although unctuously preaching the gospel of you-can't-win-at-crime to English audiences who were not criminals, but had the admis- sion price to his lectures, M. Vidocq was a scoundrel to the end. At various times in his declining days' he separately promised 10 créd- ulous damsels that he would bequeath to each of them his earthly possessions in toto. But when he had been delivered of his final bredth a will came to light in whcih he disposed of his lares and penates to his aged landlady. He died in London in 1857 at the age of 82. Yet this distinction is not denied him: Out of his little band of versatile brigadiers grew the great French Brigade de Surete. This may not prove that there always has been an un- derstanding or alliance between certain police and racketeers. Still, it is an interesting +his- torical note. For that matter, formidable Scotland. Yard, reputed to be the greatest of all detective or- ganizations, owes its beginning to a similar source. HE Bow Street Runners were England’s first professional detectives, and by the same token they were also racketeers. They were not ex-jailbirds like Vidocq's crew of al- ternating cops and robbers, but portly, monk- like little chaps in red-breasted costumss, who hung about the famous Bow street office, now called Bow Street Court, and for the handsome pittance of a guinea a day ran errands for the busy magistrates. Out of this service and certain illicit sidelines and the color of their waistcoats came their sobriquet of Robbin’ Red Breasts. They were fo.midable enough in their briiliant red, with belt lines which bristled w.il