AMERICAN NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 22 December 1930, Page 3

AMERICAN NEWS

CHICAGO’S “BEER BARONS.”

CLERGYMAN LIFE-CAVER

SAN FRANCISCO, November 10

Business is good in Chicago’s underworld —so good, in fact, that income tax charges against a trio of minor hoodlums has made the salary m the President of tlie United States appear like so much pin money. The United States Public Prosecutor, in issuing warrants lor the arrest of Jake Gusick, beer collector for “Scarface” A 1 Capone, alleged that Gusick’s income for tlie year 1928 amounted to 642,000 dollars. President Hoover, in comparison, is paid 75,(KM) dollars a year, with 25,000 dollars for travelling expenses.

Federal officers want Gusick for income tax fraud, They said he reported an income of only 18,000 dollars in 1928. Police could not find the elusive Jake, hut they did locate lvis two notorious brothers, Sam and “Greasy Thumb” Harry. All three work for Capone in the manufacture and distribution of beer, whisky and alcohol, Sam was ar-'l raigned also on income tax fraud charges hut according to the Governnfent agents he had,..not been doing quite so well as Jake. Sam, they say, only makes about 150,000 dollars per annum. ..For the last t°n years -Jake,• plentifully bedecked with diamonds and perfumed thoroughly with, eau de Cologne, has supervised the, collections of the Capone syndicate of beer barons, qn a commission basis. Capone has become a

multi-millionaire, while Jake, if the Federal charges are true, has done quite well himself. Harry, called “GreasvThumb,” because of his careful thumbing of greenback currency in his daily collection rounds of the “speakeasies.” also has been a faithful Capone henchman, and thus had profited accordingly. Harry lives at one of the most oxpensive hotels on Michigan Boulevard in Chicago. Sam made his 150.(TO dolls'rs a v°nr. Federal agents said, by virtue of his undisputed power over about ?0

square blocks on the (south side of Chicago. He also operated a glittering “speakeasy” in the centre of lils bailiwick.

Saves 1000 Lives a Year

From his pulpit in a fashionable Manhattan Church in New York, Dr. Harry

I M. Warren, once spoke of the futility lof suicide. Ormressed by the memory J of cases with which, his work hadV j brought him in contact,, lie expressed' ' the conviction that all of them would j have been easily prevented hv Hiendly, systematic guidance. “T wish.” he said, “that all who believe that death is the only solution to their problems, would give me a chance to prove them wrong.” Next day a newspaper printed the (young pastor’s statement. Within 24 j.hours he had received 12 visitors in answer to his challenge. That was the beginning of the National Save-a-Life League. Tt was 24 years ago. So many came to him from the army to defeat that he had little time for his parishioners. He found that life-saving, tackling with all his wits and energies the desperate depressions of the hopeless, | was a much more exciting job than i polite soul-saving. Tn two years, havi ing become financially independent through inheritances, he quit his pulpit for perhaps the most unusual vacation in all the field of personal service. To-day. Dr. Harry Warren sits in an office at 299, Madison Avenue, meeting an unending stream of despondent humanity. The stories are never new, yet never old. Each case, fit challenge for tlie finest psychiatrists, offers different, difficult problems, which must he met instantly and firmly. There are 1 deep lines in the face of the big man who listens to these people. His hair !if fast graying. He is called the “Doctor of Sorrows.” But be knows bow to smile. He is happy in the belief that he has saved about 25.000 lives.

Startling Revolt Story

During the last few months a Congressional Committee has been holding hearings in various centres of population in the United States inquiring into radical activities and uprooting Communist doings. Some striking incidents have been recountered, hut in the sessions held in Los Angeles, Southern California, Lieutenant-Colonel Roy F. Smith, director of the speakers’ bureau of the Better American federation, declared in his testimony that Communists who. have been supplied with at least 20,000 smuggled rifles, are ready to seize American .Government agon.cies in the name of the Soviet leaders. The coup was set for November 24. ;Tt was; agreed that further testimony of Cblonel Smith he taken at a private hearing later, but Colonel Smith said: “The general plan of the Communists is to seize all police departments, city halls, newspapers, telegraphs, railways army and navy arsenals and army and navy trucks. That plan is' in keeping with the announcement made at the Moscow convention in 1926, when United States representatives were told. ‘We have become more discreet, and it will not be long before you can readily understand our power over there.’ ”

Tcnsorial Hrpsburg “Count.”

The glittering bald spots of American business men beckoned like setting suns across the sea to Count Rudolph. Tvlohanek Ralbawekole do Kl.au den stein, and the count, being of a poetic bent, gave answer.

i Count Rudolph went up to Cherbourg I with liis green umbrella and put himself aboard the French liner De Grasse, The ship docked in New York, hut the count was not among the passengers disembarking. He was being detained at Ellis Island • until the next

.ship sailed for France. . I It seemed that when the De Grasse ■was a day or two out front Cherbourg the chief steward, impressejcl. by V* e superlative dignity of a, tall gentle'n.m wlio paced the decks with a gWVii _um brella, approached and ventured , i pohte. inquiry. “1, sir,” said ther nan, . ‘-am Count Rudolph Rudolph Klonmek l!:n----haweckle Klaudenstein.” “Glad to meet up with you, count,” said the steward. “Where’s your ticket ?” *“T'cket ■ repeated the count. “Ticket ? why, my dear sir, I just got through celling .V” 11 that [ Count- Rudolph IglobaTM Ralnaweckle, Klaudenstein. I have no ticket. | am a blood member of the Hhpsburg family. Ticket, my eye!” Tne chief stewart was not greatly disturbed. No man, not even a count with a green umbrella and two alphabets for a name I ,'could ride on his boat without a ticket. Count Rudolph, accordingly, was placed to the brig for the remainder of the journey. He asked that he be not referred to as a baibei. “I am a hairdresser, not a barber,” he explained. “Mine is an art, a great art, and a noble one. 1 have in my possession a formula which will grow hair on those bald spots you Americans seem to have. That’s why 1 came, to give your country the benefit of my discovery. It is unfortunate that I neglected to get a passport and a ticket. But really sir, I was so engrossed in my purpose that I completely iorgot it. Details, you know. It appears that I must go hack, and my great regret is that J leave all these bald spots behind me. Deprived of my great hope, I shall spend the return voyage writing poetry-rdejjeatist verse, you know, poems of tlie seeking-al'tei'-and-not-finding.” , '" l

Martyr to X-Rays.

Coincident with the report Irom London that Dr. Ernest Henry Harhack, 65-year-old pioneer in X-ray work, and Dr. Stanley Melville, founder 0f,,, the X-Ray and radium protection oemmittee in England, had suffered amputations-; through radium burns, came the announcement from in ore, Maryland, that the science of rbptgenologv had claimed another toll from one of its pioneers, when Dr Clirjstan Deetjen, Baltimore physician, had /.submitted to an amputation of his left hand above the wrist. The operation was designed to check the persistent spread of mysterious injuries tn the skin, flesh and hone, which constant” use of X-ray equipment inflicts.