IN THE GANGSTER WORLD

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 104, 26 January 1935, Page 18

IN THE GANGSTER WORLD

Police Overawed; Amazing Revelations

“I am not being boastful,” says Mr. Gordon Fellowes in “They Took Me For a Ride,” when I say that I am one of the few men who have ever been taken for a ride by gangsters and lived through the ordeal. It certainly sounds a supremely uncomfortable experience. He was acting as criminal investigator in St. Louis at the time, and could not have been too popular with the gangsters. So they,arranged an appointment With him. "As I walked up to the main door of the Pierce Building four men confronted me, and I realised at a glance that I had walked into a trap. One of them, a big blustering man, making no pretence of concealing the gun in his hand, barred my way. “ ‘Fellowes,’ he said, ‘we’re going to take you for a ride.’ I knew it and I knew it would be useless to argue, and I knew that in all probability I was about to begin my last hour of life. I had a curious feeling of exhiliration.” They rushed him across to a car and sat him in the back between them. They drove him out to a desolate part of the country and set to work. What they really wanted was to find out where he kept his copy of the confession of another gangster who had betrayed his comrades:

"From seven-thirty till nearly midnight—almost five hours—l was crossexamined, searched, struck with guns and fists, and subjected to every imaginable form of mental and physical suffering. - "Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, the car drove along those quiet roads, and in turn each man questioned, threatened, cursed, and struck until I was hardly in a state of consciousness.” x But, in spite of everything, he refused to give in. He felt that once . they knew where the confession was hidden "the next dawn would have found my body lying in a ditch”—“bumped off.” As it was they let him go. Later he received another warning. Re was working with a prominent Senator who was determined to suppress the gangsters, and he knew that they were both suspected. One night, he says, “I answered the telephone to hear a voice, which I did not recognise saying in cold, precise tones: ‘You’re on the spot, Fellowes, and this is the last warning you will ever get. Got me?’ I certainly had got him. I would have been a fool to have ignored the warning.” He went to the Senator and told him that he was going to He low for a bit. That evehing the Senator was murdered in the theatre. According to Mr. Fellowes, many of the police work hand in hand with the criminals. He was shot at one day and next morning was summoned to the police station to identify a couple of possible assailants. In the , ante-room “an officer walked up to me with a Jsmile —not a very pleasant smile. “ ‘Say, Fellowes,’ he muttered, ‘you jjon’t know these guys. Get me?’ “Well,” I retorted, “I should recognise the man who took a shot at me. “ ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort!’ snapped the officer. ‘You’ll keep your inouth shut’ ” Thinking that discretion was the better part of valour, he would not identify the men—although he recognised one of them perfectly well. And nothing more was heard about the shooting. Mr. Fellowes tells us that he and the Senator “tapped” the telephone line of h high police official and heard some Astonishing conversations. One day a gang leader rang up and demanded that one of his men, in prison for killing a bank manager, should be realeased.

(Chis was to be done by somebody else. Next night they heard this: ‘‘Guess I’ve got the guy you want . . . his name Is RcG —, and he is located in Detroit

waiting for sentence for another, lap. I suggest I get the judge to pass him to us for the Phelps murder. “Fine! I knew you’d do it for me! How much do you want for the job?” The police official was undecided about his charge . He said ... he would content himself with asking for an advance of five hundred dollars on account of current expenses. This was agreed upon, and the two men proceeded to elaborate the details of a scheme whereby a high police official should charge with murder a man who had no connection with the crime in order that the real murderer should go free.

In Chicago, Mr. Fellowes became mixed up with the “Bugs” Moran gang, Capone’s chief rivals. He was investigating the sources of gangland’s arms at the time. The Moran gang had their headquarters in a garage, and Mr. Fellowes was invited to play cards there: “As I sat among these men I found myself making many mistakes at the game because I could hardly keep my eyes away from the four highpowered armoured cars, fitted with unbreakable glass, which stood with their noses pointed expectantly toward the garage door —and in each there was a mounted machine gun.

“Nightfall soon came, and for some time we sat in a circle —eight gangsters and one detective —playing cards by the dim light of one electric lamp. I lost twenty dollars.” Shortly after this, seven of the gang were shot down by machine guns in this very garage. Moran himself escaped this massacre, and the last Mr. Fellowes heard of him be was living somewhere in Michigan, closely guarded. I believe he pays only an occasional visit to Chicago, when, heavily guarded by armed men, he collects his payment as Vice-President of the Dry Cleaners’ Protective Association!

As for Thompson, the man whom Mr. Fellowes found to be the gangsters’ chief armourer, he is still alive —but only just. Not long ago be was discharged from hospital after being pumped full of machine-gun slugs, presumably by Moran. In this case he forgot to wear one of his own bullet-proof waistcoats!

The so-called “Protective Associations” are one of the gangsters’ chief sources of revenue. Mr. Fellowes quotes the case of a laundry proprietor who defied the men who demanded money for “protection.” First his vans full of customers’ clothes were stolen, then he reported that a "pineapple bomb had been thrown into his plant and had blown most of it to-pieces ..;.

That night somebody broke into the half-wrecked laundry and sprinkled the premises, including the customers’ clothes, with corrosive acid. He was now an almost ruined man—all within a week!”

The profits made by the gangs are enormous, if we are to believe Mr. Fellowes. In Chicago, he says, .Tack Zuta, a prominent gangster before his assassination, told him that the weekly income of Chicago gangsters and extortioners, derived from about c OOO speakeasies, 2800 disorderly houses paying protection, 200 of the larger gambling dens, and 2000 bookmakers, amounted to about 6,000,000 dollars. Mr. Fellowes is speaking ot conditions some few years ago. Things may possibly be better now. Bur judging from the publicity given to John Dillinger and others, America still has a long way to go. Mr. Fellowes has certainly written a most exciting account of his experiences—many of which, we imagine, ho would not like to go through again. He now finds it safer to live in England.