Part 9

“What’s going on?” Fleishman asked. “Are we going to get some action?”

The inspector said, “Finish your sandwich and let’s get out of here.”

When they returned to the car, the inspector said, “Joe says at least three undercover men are working on the force and they’ve put the finger on about forty men. The mob is trying to find out who the stool pigeons are. Nothing’s going to move until they do.”

For the next two hours, Fleishman’s companions talked of little else except the bribes they had turned down, and how honest they had been. Fleishman knew their talk was solely for his benefit. They were not good enough actors to conceal their anxiety.

When they finally stopped at a restaurant for a cup of coffee, Fleishman excused himself on the pretext that he had to call his wife. Instead he called the Barlum Hotel and asked for Elmer Lewis.

Lewis answered the phone. Fleishman explained what had happened. “This doesn’t look good to me, Mr. Lewis,” he said.

Lewis said, “Your job’s finished. Now go home and pack your things. Get over here with your wife as fast as you can. You’ll both be safer here.”

Fleishman moved with his wife into the Barlum Hotel and only then did she learn of the role her husband had been playing for more than two months. A few days later, they slipped from the hotel and headed back East in their Model A Ford.

On November 30, eighteen hoodlums were arrested, along with nineteen patrolmen. Two-score other patrolmen resigned. The cleanup was a newspaper sensation.

Pete Licavoli was among those sentenced to prison. The mob leader over the years had escaped conviction on charges ranging from sluggings to murders. But this time he pleaded guilty to bribing a Federal officer. He was fined $1,000 and sentenced to two years in Leavenworth prison.

While Fleishman was uncovering the evidence to convict Licavoli and the others in Detroit, another young agent--Chester A. Emerick--was making some interesting discoveries on the West Coast. A big, easy-going man, Emerick had developed sources which disclosed to him that much of the liquor bootlegged on the Pacific Coast was being shipped by a combine of Canadian liquor interests. Emerick learned that the Canadian liquor interests had formed the Pacific Forwarding Company of British Columbia to exploit the American liquor market. The company loaded its whiskey on ships at Vancouver for shipment ostensibly to Papeete, Tahiti. Once the liquor arrived in Tahiti, the Tahitian customs bond was cancelled and the shippers were not required to pay taxes on the liquor exported. Then the liquor was moved from Papeete to Rum Row off Southern California, off Long Beach and off the Washington coast. Rum Row was the nickname given by newspapers to the line of ships which stood at anchor in international waters, three miles offshore and just out of reach of U.S. maritime jurisdiction.

The Canadians did not merely bring the liquor to Rum Row. They had a well-organized force of salesmen operating in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle, selling whiskey to bootleggers and guaranteeing delivery on a wholesale basis. The money collected by these salesmen was deposited in several banks along the Pacific Coast to the credit of the “Gulf Investment Company”--a company owned and controlled by the Canadian liquor interest. No one knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars in profit was realized by the Canadian conspiracy.

Emerick doggedly followed up the original leads obtained during prohibition and pressed for Federal action against the Canadian liquor dealers. In the spring of 1934--two years after the repeal of prohibition--two officers of the Canadian interests, Henry and George Reifel, arrived in Seattle. They were placed under arrest. The warrants had been issued secretly, and only four or five Customs officials knew of the action that had been taken. Service was obtained on warrants against the corporation which they represented, and a Federal action was brought in the District Court at Seattle, Washington. Before the case was concluded the Canadian interests had agreed to settle all liabilities by paying the U.S. government $3 million. This payment was accepted by the government and the case was closed.

There never were and perhaps there never will be again smuggling operations of such a magnitude as those which developed during the days of prohibition. Booze leaked across the borders from Canada and Mexico in streams. High-powered speedboats brought cases of liquor from supply ships riding at anchor in international waters. The Coast Guard and Customs were engaged at times in a shooting war with the rumrunners, and in the Detroit area alone, Customs had thirty speedboats engaged in around-the-clock blockade operations.

No authoritative study is available on how many ships and boats were engaged in rumrunning during the Twenties. But it was a formidable fleet, and there had been nothing quite like it since the blockade runners assembled their fleet to challenge the Union’s blockade of the South during the Civil War.

One of the largest hauls of bootleg alcohol made by Customs came in 1926 with the seizure of the freighter _Cretan_, which was found to be carrying more than 70,000 gallons of Belgian alcohol easily worth $4 million on the retail bootleg market.

The _Cretan_ was purchased by a “front” man for a group of Philadelphia and New York racketeers. Early in 1926, the _Cretan_ steamed to the Bay of Fundy, where it made a rendezvous with the British ship the _Herald_. The _Herald_’s cargo of alcohol, a total of seven hundred 100-gallon drums, was transferred to the hold of the _Cretan_. Then several tons of baled waste paper were piled on top of the drums to conceal them in case the ship was boarded by Coast Guard or Customs officers.

The _Cretan_ headed for Philadelphia with its valuable cargo of 190-proof spirits, but the mobsters weren’t satisfied with the arrangements for unloading the cargo in Philadelphia. A message was sent to the _Cretan_’s captain ordering him to proceed to Boston and take on more baled waste paper. A decision would be made later on where to unload the alcohol.

The _Cretan_ steamed into Boston harbor on schedule and tied up at an isolated pier. It began to take on more waste paper, with no one suspecting its true cargo. But a Customs officer observed several well-dressed men coming and going from the ship. He also noticed that two strange automobiles, both bearing New York license plates, were parked nearby. And he began to wonder what it was aboard the vessel that would bring the strangers all the way from New York to Boston--men who didn’t seem to be seafaring types.

He reported his suspicion to Deputy Collector of Customs Thomas F. Finnegan. Finnegan decided to send a special duty squad aboard the ship to determine the nature of the ship’s cargo. The squad boarded the _Cretan_ but found they could not get into the holds. However, when they entered a coal bunker next to the holds, they detected the unmistakable odor of alcohol.

Finnegan ordered an immediate halt to the loading of waste paper. He posted guards at the gangway to prevent anyone from leaving the ship, and arranged for a lightering firm to unload the bales of waste paper from one hold. When the paper was removed, the drums of alcohol were uncovered. The _Cretan_ and its cargo were forfeited to the government and sold at public auction. The alcohol was sold to drug companies which had Federal permits to dispense alcohol.

Some of the rumrunning craft were equipped with armor plate and bullet-proof glass around the pilot house area. They had underwater exhaust mufflers installed in order to slide silently through the water at night and evade the Coast Guard and Customs patrols. Most of them had two high-speed motors, each with a shaft and propeller. The conversion work on the boats was done by the rumrunners themselves or by small boat builders.

The _Whatzis_, operating out of Rhode Island, was believed to be the first rumrunning speedboat with four high-speed motors--two in tandem in each engine bed with a reduction gear between the motors. Each set of motors had one shaft and one propeller. This powerful craft was seized by the Coast Guard off the Massachusetts coast and later was inspected by several naval architects interested in its unusual power plant. Some insist to this day that the _Whatzis_ was the craft that gave naval designers their idea for the rugged crash boats used at seaplane bases, and later for the PT boats which won renown in World War II.

The Twenties was a time of violence and turmoil for all the nation. And no agency of the government was more actively involved than the Customs Service, which, with other agencies, had the impossible task of trying to throw up a dike against the flow of illegal whiskey into the United States. Many good men tried, honestly and diligently, to enforce the law. But the great majority of the people simply didn’t want prohibition.

In this period, Customs developed a tough and experienced corps of law enforcement agents and supervisors who were to serve the country well in future years.

7

THE ENFORCERS

Customs now has 240 special agents who police the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico coastlines and the borders between Mexico and Canada. Their work is supported by 487 Customs enforcement officers (port patrolmen) and 2,551 Customs inspectors and supervisors.

Pressures for a special investigative force to combat smuggling and fraud developed after the Civil War, when normal trade was resumed between the United States and other nations of the world. Violations of the Tariff Act and a loose morality in administrative offices became so flagrant in those postwar years that in May, 1870, Congress passed a law providing: “The Secretary of the Treasury may appoint special agents, not exceeding 53 in number, for the purpose of making examinations of the books, papers and accounts of Collectors and other officers of the Customs, and to be employed generally under the direction of the Secretary, in the prevention and detection of frauds on the Customs revenue....”

With this act, the Secretary of the Treasury gathered under his direction for the first time a special police force to combat smuggling and frauds.

The need for such a force actually dated back to the first days of the Republic. But over the years, the enforcement work had been handled by inspectors, guards and other untrained personnel. In 1922 Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon transferred the Special Agency Service from his personal direction to the Customs Administration, which was then a division of the Treasury Department. In 1927, the Customs Division was given the status of a bureau by Congress, with direct control over its own investigative force.

This force now operates under a Division of Investigations, headed by the veteran enforcement officer Chester A. Emerick, former Collector of Internal Revenue in Tacoma, Washington, who joined the Customs Service in 1920. Emerick has the title of Deputy Commissioner, and he is responsible to the Commissioner of Customs in the operation of his division.

The responsibilities of the Customs agents were not clearly defined in the early days of their operation. But a clear directive was issued in 1933 to dispel any lingering doubts. This directive read: “(a) Customs agents shall be employed generally in the prevention and detection of frauds on the Customs revenue and all matters involving such frauds requiring investigation shall be referred to them. They shall investigate and report upon all matters brought to their attention by the Commissioner of Customs, Collectors, Appraisers, Comptrollers, and others relating to drawback, undervaluation, smuggling, personnel, Customs procedure, and any other Customs matters.

“(b) undivided responsibility for the investigation and reporting to the proper authority of all irregularities concerning any phase of Customs administration or misconduct on the part of Customs employees, by whatever means brought to its attention, rests with the Customs Agency Service. This injunction, however, is not to be construed as abridging or modifying the responsibility of the principal field officers to maintain discipline and efficiency in the Customs personnel. There shall be no differentiation in the treatment of chief administrative officers of Customs and their subordinates in the matter of investigating accusations of alleged official misconduct. Collectors and other chief officers of the Customs shall cooperate in making this policy effective.”

* * * * *

Jerome Dolan is a handsome, black-haired young Irishman. It was, literally, a swift and embarrassing kick in the pants which started him on the road to becoming a Treasury agent.

It began for Dolan when he was a twelve-year-old living on Selby Avenue in the Lexington Parkway area of St. Paul, Minnesota. The street was a quiet, comfortable, tree-shaded thoroughfare lined with the homes of middle-income families. The Dolan home was near a shopping center and only a brisk walk from the neighborhood school.

There were playgrounds not far distant and vacant lots where youngsters could play baseball after school and during vacations. But in the perverse way of small boys, Dolan and his pals found it more fun to play ball on the streets, much to the annoyance of the residents and Officer “Red” Schwartz, who frequently cruised through the area in Patrol Car 309.

Schwartz was a large, muscular man standing 6 feet 2. He was forever breaking up the ball games with gruff commands for the boys to get off the streets. If there was any backtalk, Schwartz was likely to box the ears of the impertinent rebel, or to boot him in the behind. Then he would growl that he wasn’t going to have anyone killed by an automobile on his beat if he could help it.

Dolan and his friends usually kept a sharp lookout for Schwartz, the enemy. But one day they were careless and Car 309 came rolling down the street into the midst of a noisy game. Officer Schwartz came boiling from behind the wheel of the car. He laid two heavy hands on Dolan and another youth who hadn’t been nimble enough to escape. He shook them until their teeth rattled and then he booted them in the backsides with the broadside of a large shoe--just hard enough to give emphasis to his words.

“Maybe that will teach you a lesson,” Officer Schwartz called to the retreating youths. “And don’t let me catch you again.”

It never occurred to Schwartz to complain to the youths’ parents. This was his beat. It was his responsibility to maintain law and order, and to protect the lives of those in his charge. He also felt it was his duty to discipline the youths who showed a lack of proper respect for authority.

“I’ll get even with that red-headed cop,” Dolan vowed. “Just you wait and see.”

“How are you goin’ to get even?” his friend asked.

Dolan considered the problem. At last he said, “Well, I’m going to be a policeman and when I’m his boss, I’ll fix him.”

As a sophomore in high school, Dolan had forgotten his vow to “fix” Schwartz, even though he often looked from the window of his classroom to see Car 309 cruising by the schoolyard. But he had not lost his determination to become a law enforcement officer. In writing down his ambition for the class yearbook, he wrote: “I want to be a Federal law enforcement officer.”

One reason Dolan had fixed his sights on a career in Federal law enforcement was the fact that the father of his friend, Sam Hardy, Jr., was an FBI agent. Sam Hardy occasionally came to the school and talked to the students about the work of the FBI. These talks only strengthened his desire to become a Federal agent.

After graduating from high school in the spring of 1950, Dolan entered the Army. He was assigned to the Army’s security section and he travelled throughout the Far East as a courier. When he was mustered out of the service, he enrolled in St. Thomas College in St. Paul and worked part time as an investigator for business firms.

He was graduated from St. Thomas in 1958 and became chief security officer for the Golden Rule Department Store in St. Paul. Then he joined the city’s police department.

One morning Dolan reported for roll call at the main police headquarters in the Public Safety Building. After inspection the lieutenant read off the list of assignments for the day. He said, “Dolan, you will work Car 309 with Officer Schwartz.”

Dolan climbed into the car beside Schwartz and all the old memories came flooding back of how he once hated this gruff policeman who had booted him in the pants. He remembered wryly his vow to one day get revenge.

Now “Red” Schwartz’s hair was sprinkled with gray. He was heavier and the lines on his face were deeper. His hands, though, were just as big and powerful as Dolan had remembered, and he had the same stern air of authority about him.

Dolan said nothing about the remembered indignities, and the older man apparently did not recognize the rookie as one of the youngsters who had given him such a bad time out on Selby Avenue. He could not know, either, that he had had such a strong influence on the youth who sat beside him.

They made their rounds without incident that day until late in the afternoon when the car radio said: “Car 309 ... Hague and Dunlap ... a child has been struck by a car....”

Schwartz picked up the transmitter and said: “309 to Hague and Dunlap ... 4:05.” He swung the car toward the scene of the accident. A little girl lay beside the curb, and her weeping mother was wiping blood from her daughter’s face with a cloth. The child had darted from the curb into the path of an automobile. There had been a screech of brakes and the girl had been hurled to the curb, unconscious.

As Dolan recalled the scene later in talking to me: “Schwartz, as big as he was, was out of the car ahead of me. He went straight to the little girl and her mother and I never would have believed those big hands could be so gentle. He soothed the mother with a few words, and when he saw the girl wasn’t seriously hurt, he picked her up in his arms and carried her into her home as though she were his own daughter.”

Then Dolan added, “I was very proud of Schwartz that day and of being his partner in Car 309.”

Twelve years after receiving the kick in the pants from Schwartz, Dolan was among the students selected to attend the Treasury Department’s Law Enforcement School at 711 12th Street in downtown Washington, D. C. He finally had decided to become a Secret Service agent, and now he was receiving basic training with rookie agents from the Customs Bureau, the Narcotics Bureau, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and units of the Internal Revenue Service.

Watching these young men in training, you wondered what it was that moved each of them to choose Federal law enforcement as a career. The work is difficult and demanding, calling for stern self-discipline. The hours are long, irregular and often filled with danger. No agent ever knows when he may be called from his home on an emergency assignment which may last for weeks. The pay, ranging from $5,355 per year for a rookie to a high of $10,255 for a veteran agent (only the supervising agents receive higher pay) is not exactly an economic bonanza for a college graduate. Salary is not the primary inducement; many of the youths have wanted to be in law enforcement since childhood.

One youth told me, “My father was shot and killed by a bootlegger when I was just a boy. I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I’ve always wanted to be in law enforcement to help fight crime.”

“I like the excitement of the work,” another said, “never knowing from one day to the next what the problem will be or how it will be solved.”

“I didn’t have much chance for advancement as a city policeman, but it’s different as a Federal agent.”

“There’s no politics in Federal law enforcement--not like you find in local law enforcement. You don’t have to worry about the politicians.”

A good many of the rookie agents who come to the school studied police administration in college and then worked on city police forces before taking the Civil Service examination required of candidates for Federal law enforcement jobs.

When an applicant passes the examination, his name goes on the Federal Registry, and it is from this registry that most of the new agents are chosen. Regional boards composed of representatives from the various Treasury divisions interview the applicants as openings occur from time to time in the agents’ ranks. Customs may need a Spanish-speaking agent for duty on the Mexican border. Narcotics may be looking for a man of Italian ancestry who speaks Sicilian fluently. Or Revenue may be searching for an investigator with a knowledge of accounting.

If an applicant wins approval on the regional board, his background is investigated and he is given a physical examination. If all goes well, he is sworn into the service of his choice.

The rookie agents spend their first months in service receiving on-the-job training by working with experienced officers. Then they are sent to the Treasury’s Law Enforcement School for six weeks of study in basic courses such as how to make searches and seizures, how to conduct a surveillance, how to plan a raid, how to photograph the scene of a crime, how to take latent fingerprints, how to interview witnesses and interrogate suspects, and how to conduct themselves in a courtroom under cross-examination.

The Treasury school was established permanently in Washington in 1951 and has now graduated more than 15,000 agents. It is headed by Director Patrick O’Carroll, a forty-two-year-old former Narcotics agent who was reared in New York City. O’Carroll was graduated from Fordham University in 1944, where he majored in psychology. Dark-haired, handsome Pat O’Carroll guides a staff of fifty instructors, who give the basic training to rookies and also instruct veteran agents in specialized courses involving administrative duties. At present the school is conducting six 6-week courses a year for rookies, with an average of eighty students in each class. There also are a scattering of foreign students, sent by their governments to study American police methods.

O’Carroll and his aides strive to make the instruction as realistic as possible by providing problems which simulate actual situations the young agents will face in their everyday work. In the 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. classes, held five days a week, the men spend about half their time working on practical law enforcement problems. The other half is spent in listening to lectures by agents, police administrators, college professors and attorneys. The lectures cover such subjects as constitutional law, civil rights and rules of criminal law procedure.

Toward the end of the course, the students are divided into squads of five men and given the problem of arresting a suspected criminal, searching his apartment for evidence, preparing the case for presentation to a grand jury, and appearing in court as witnesses.

On the fourth floor of the school building is a furnished room in which have been hidden narcotics, counterfeit money, betting slips, jewels and other incriminating evidence. The room is occupied by a veteran agent posing as “Richard Roe,” the suspected criminal.