True Crime Roundup VII

(1) "Our New Rum-Running Treaty" (1924) (1 page):
It's been four years since Prohibition has gone into effect, but the sheer impossibility of trying to keep America "dry" doesn't seem to have dawned on the responsible parties:

RUM ROW, OFF THE JERSEY COAST, will have to row farther out to sea now that Ambassador Geddes for Great Britain and Secretary of State Hughes for the United States have signed a joint treaty calculated to curtail if not entirely suppress rum smuggling. The so-called rumrunning treaty, which must still run the gantlet of ratification in the Senate, permits American Government vessels to search and seize British ships, suspected of carrying contraband liquors, within "one hour's steaming distance of the American shore."

In return for this privilege, the Government permits British ships to bring legitimate alcoholic liquors under seal into American ports, altho several editors remind us that this apparently conflicts with the Supreme Court decision which was supposed to make British and other ships entering our ports absolutely dry.

For brevity, the new treaty is one of the most remarkable international docu-ments on record . . . .

(2) "Washington's Prohibition Tragedy" (1924) (1 page):
Although the movies overdid it, occasionally gun battles between bootleggers and Volstead Act enforcers would happen—and sometimes innocent bystanders would suffer:

THE VICTIM of Washington's recent Prohibition tragedy, Senator Frank L. Greene, of Vermont, struck by a stray bullet in an exchange of shots between Prohibition enforcement agents and bootleggers.  . . .

From Wikipedia:

. . . On the evening of February 15, 1924, Greene was walking with his wife near an alley on Capitol Hill when Prohibition agents were about to arrest several men unloading a still from their car. The bootleggers ran, the agents fired their guns, and Greene was struck in the head by a stray bullet. Greene was in critical condition for several weeks, and never fully recovered. His right arm was para-lyzed, and his legs were severely weakened.  . . .

(3) "Our Share in the Murderer's Guilt" (1924) (2 pages):
Juvenile delinquency isn't a new thing in America, but how to deal with it has always been a subject of controversy:

. . . "The difficulty is that the moment you begin to talk about using scientific methods with criminals [especially those under twenty-five], people who have never looked into the subject at once say it is all nonsense. They say we are coddling the criminal, treating him as diseased, covering him with flowers and encouraging crime. But this is strictly not so.

"What those who believe in those things are advocating is simply that we shall anticipate the crime as far as possible. And, on the other hand, when they have committed crime, this army of predatory cavemen and women shall be kept for the safety of the public under present methods for as long terms of imprison-ment and confinement as possible."  . . .

(4) "Chemistry As a Crime-Detector" (1924) (2 pages):
Speaking of "scientific methods":

. . . This branch of science [chemistry], he [Dr. Henry Leffmann] tells us, early gained recognition as an aid to the detection of many forms of crime, but especially in the identification of poisons. While this is still one of the main objects of the chemist engaged in aiding the police and the courts, other questions of importance have arisen, among which is the detection of blood and the determination of the animal from which it is derived.  . . .

. . . "The modern control of foods and beverages has multiplied greatly the applications of chemistry, and compelled much research and investigation. Crime of all kinds, from murder to petty theft, manifests a good deal of ingenuity and resource, and the work of the public chemist is a sort of a game of hide and seek. A process for detection of a certain poison or adulterant becomes known; those who have criminal intent can frequently find either a substitute which is satisfactory for their purposes, but does not respond to the tests for the original substance, or they can mask the original substance so that the standard test fails. The chemist is constantly discarding processes either because better ones are available or because the ingenuity of law-breakers has changed conditions."  . . .

. . . "The detection of inferior materials is often very important, and chemical and microscopical methods are employed. The several fibers used in paper-making have distinct characteristics and, in addition, ground wood gives distinct colors with certain solutions. The detection of ground wood might serve to show a fraudulent document, since if a deed or other legal document purported to have been drawn at a date previous to the use of such wood was found to contain such material, the fraud would be evident."  . . .

(5) "New Traps for Picture-Fakers" (1924) (2 pages):
The influence of Locard seems to have served as an inspiration to other French forensics scientists:

SHERLOCK HOLMES HIMSELF could hardly surpass in resourcefulness the brilliant French chemist and physicist, Mr. Bayle, who is at the head of the Bureau of Judicial Identity in Paris, and recently addrest the French Academy of Sciences on his new and ingenious methods of detecting fraudulent works of art. He uses not only the microscope and both X-rays and ultra-violet rays, but also an invention of his own, the chromoscope.  . . .

. . . In a case recently tried in which a portrait of a woman painted by Renoir was the subject of litigation, he was able to show the very form of the brush-mark which had been altered from the normal by reason of a stroke of paralysis which the painter had suffered.  . . .

Resource:
- Our latest True Crime entry can be found HERE.

Category: True crime

True Crime Roundup VI

It's the early '20s, and Eliot Ness and his "Untouchables" are yet to get into the fray over bootleg liquor in violation of the The National Prohibition Act (the Eighteenth Amendment, popularly known as the Volstead Act, in effect January 1920 - December 1933). That act proved to be a disastrous example of excessive do-gooding, but there were justifiable health concerns. Meanwhile diploma mills were churning out unqualified medicos, and Philadelphia tried to get tough on crime (proving that the safer you are, the less free you are). Brief excerpts:

Ness and the Untouchables were ultimately able to nail "Scarface" Al Capone on income tax evasion.

 ~ "The Bootlegger Triumphant" (The Nation, February 22, 1922, 1 page):

TO THE BOOTLEGGERS we take off our hats. Not only do they, like the operators of the Underground Railroad of yore, successfully defy the militant agents of State and Federal governments, but they have brought to despair one powerful bureau of the Treasury. We mean, of course, that wherein the income-tax officials supervise our financial destinies.  . . .

~ "The Poison in Prohibition Moonshine" (The Literary Digest, November 10, 1923, 2 pages):

PRECAUTIONS TAKEN by the pre-Prohibition moonshiner to insure the purity of his product are now thrown to the winds . . . The poisons always present in raw liquor, which are properly reduced by aging or by redistillation, are retained, owing to haste to market the valuable product . . . The most casual survey of the public press must impress everyone, the writers say, with the vicious if not deadly character of the illicit liquor that is now being dealt in and consumed for beverage purposes.  . . .

~ "The 'Respectable' Criminal in Court" (The Literary Digest, November 10, 1923, 1 page):

STEAL A MILLION and you're safe; steal a dime and you'll go to jail, it has often been said, half in jest and half in earnest. It does seem sometimes that the greater the crime, the slower and the less the retribution. "Bank busting," we are told, is attended with less serious consequences for the "buster" than is the same result accomplished by ruder methods by men whose names have never graced a society column. Which explains to some observers of the times the cynicism with which the courts and legal processes are sometimes regarded. . .

~ " 'Quack Doctors by the Thousand' " (The Literary Digest, December 8, 1923, 2 pages):

. . . "These parasites and their accomplices give pause to the thought that human nature is being purged of cruelty. Plain thuggery and crimes with special motives of enmity are not so sickening as the homicides of these imposters, who set up as physicians and surgeons knowing that they are more likely to kill than cure."  . . .

Quackery in medicine is nothing new, as this Hogarth painting shows: "The Visit to the Quack Doctor" (1743).

~ "Uncle Sam's Chief 'Devil Dog' to Police Philadelphia" (The Literary Digest, December 29, 1923, 1 page):

. . . [Brigadier] General [Smedley Darlington] Butler intends to "remold the department throughout," and declares, "When I get through with it the criminals and the vicious element will scurry to cover whenever they see a bluecoat. I'm going to make my men feel proud of their jobs and proud of their own honesty and immunity to corruption." That, he thinks, is "the foundation of a fine police force."  . . . [For more information about Butler's controversial time as Director of Public Safety in Philadelphia go HERE.]

~ The Rise and Fall of Prohibition: The Human Side of What the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act Have Done to the United States (1923).
By Charles Hanson Towne.
Nonfiction (220 pages).
Online HERE.

. . . If, in correcting one evil, we bring to life greater evils, are we on the right track?  . . .

Resource:
- ONTOS's last True Crime Roundup was HERE.

Category: True crime

"Maybe a State Police Crowd Could Have Handled It Better, but I Don’t Know."

"Murder Money."

By Ellis Parker Butler (1869-1937; Wikipedia HERE and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Argosy, March 9, 1935.

Short short story (9 pages).

Online at the Pulpgen Archive (HERE).

   "Sort of reverse English, huh?"

IF a middle-aged Huck Finn had ever decided to kick back in front of the fireplace and recount a tale of murder, it might have looked something like this . . .

Main characters:

~ George, Rance Dalton, Sheriff Elbert Donworthy, Andy Fuller, Mose Brown, Orty Jones, Terry Breen, Milt Morris, Pen Harmon, Phil Straus, Mrs. Eliza Gunnerson, Brick and Bessie, Doc Overton, and the unnamed tramp (and, yes, one of them is the killer).

Typo: “'Hands up!' she [he] ordered."

References:

- "The country was full of men out of work"; "The depression must be over":

  This being 1935, of course, the Not-So-Great Depression was still on everybody's mind:

  "In the United States, the Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and then spread worldwide. The nadir came in 1931–1933, and recovery came in 1940. The stock market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, famine, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth as well as for personal advancement." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "until prohibition got wiped out":

  "The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "put the hounds on his tracks":

  "A hound is a type of hunting dog used by hunters to track or chase prey. What makes hounds unique is the way they hunt; some, known as scent hounds, follow trails with their powerful noses, while others, called sighthounds, rely on their sharp vision and speed to spot and chase prey across open land. Breeds like the Beagle, Bloodhound, and Greyhound are well-known examples." (Wikipedia HERE.)

Resource:

- Earlier this year we spent some time with Ellis Parker Butler's Great Near-Detective, Oliver Spotts (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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True Crime Roundup II

The Twenties were just starting to roar, but due to well-meaning mistakes like Prohibition crime was on the upswing:

~ "Detection of False Handwriting" (1921): "THIS TAKES ON GREAT IMPORTANCE in criminal jurisprudence—in cases of suspected frauds in wills or documents, forged checks, etc. Recent methods [have been] devised and used by Dr. Locard, director of the Police Laboratory in Lyons, France . . . It is claimed that these are more scientific and more mathematically exact than previous ones. Dr. Locard places great reliance on measurement of the peculiarities of a handwriting on photographic enlargements.  . . . when we have to deal with simple free-hand imitation of handwriting, if it is apparently perfect, identification is difficult. This is the problem solved by Dr. Locard.  . . ." — THE LITERARY DIGEST (August 6, 1921)

~ "The Necessity of Pistol-Toting" (1921): ". . . one of the editors of Field and Stream (New York) dismiss[es] the claim of an Iowan clergyman and a United States Senator that prohibiting the sale of small arms would prevent crime, the editor arguing that the effect of such a statute would be exactly the reverse of what its advocates desire, since the criminal would still go armed, while all good citizens would obey the law.  . . ." — THE LITERARY DIGEST (August 6, 1921)

~ "Rum Ships That Pass in the Night" (1921): "The traffic which they [government ships and airplanes] are going to suppress is carried on not only in coastwise ships, says The Tribune, but a fleet of fast motor-boats carry wet cargoes ashore at strategic points, and are there met by motor-trucks which distribute the smuggled liquor, valued at millions of dollars, along the coast. Obviously, it is not a poor man's game." — THE LITERARY DIGEST (August 20, 1921)

~ "Accounting for the 'Crime Wave' " (1921): "BURGLARY AND EMBEZZLEMENT resulted in the loss of $100,000,000 and the payment of more than $16,000,000 in claims by thirty of the principal insurance companies, according to a recent statement by President William B. Joyce, of the National Surety Company . . . Prohibition; lessening of respect for law, which is said by some newspaper editors to be partly due to reform agitation; envy induced by the exploitation of wealth; extravagance, and the spread of radicalism are among the causes listed by Mr. Joyce for the prevalance of these particular forms of crime.  . . ." — THE LITERARY DIGEST (August 27, 1921)

~ The “war to end all wars” was over, but a new one was just beginning—on the streets of America.

It wasn’t much of a fight, really—at least at the start.

On the one side was a rising tide of professional criminals, made richer and bolder by Prohibition, which had turned the nation “dry” in 1920. In one big city alone—Chicago—an estimated 1,300 gangs had spread like a deadly virus by the mid-1920s.

There was no easy cure. With wallets bursting from bootlegging profits, gangs outfitted themselves with “Tommy” guns and operated with impunity by paying off politicians and police alike. Rival gangs led by the powerful Al “Scarface” Capone and the hot-headed George “Bugs” Moran turned the city streets into a virtual war zone with their gangland clashes. By 1926, more than 12,000 murders were taking place every year across America.  . . . — "The FBI and the American Gangster, 1924-1938," from The FBI: A Centennial History, 1908-2008

~ "A New Way to Trap Forgers" (1921): "PRESS DISPATCHES from California tell of the confession of a forger after he had been confronted with photographic evidence of his crime obtained by Chauncy McGovern, a San Francisco handwriting expert, by a method said to have been employed for the first time on this case.  . . ." — THE LITERARY DIGEST (October 1, 1921)

~ "Tear-Bombs for Mobs and Bandits" (1921): "THE PHILADELPHIA POLICE think that they now have the means of stopping a charging mob or a fleeing bandit, putting either out of commission and yet inflicting no permanent injury. This is to be done by grenades throwing out a gas similar to the 'tear-gas' used in the late war.  . . ." — THE LITERARY DIGEST (October 15, 1921)

~ "Finger-Prints to Settle Art Disputes" (1921): "Modern criminology has given the answer. The police made reply where art critics could not. An expert inspector in the criminal identification department [C.I.D.] of the Scotland Yard pointed to the finger-prints and said: 'This is the work of Leonardo da Vinci'." — THE LITERARY DIGEST (October 15, 1921)

Resources:
- Our first True Crime Roundup is HERE.
- An angry-toned study of how the Puritans' "blue laws" paralleled the modern Prohibition crusade is Ye Olden Blue Laws (1921), online HERE, with reviews HERE and HERE.

Category: True crime

"Why Not, Say on the Next Murder, Take a Leaf from the Book of Sherlock Holmes"

JUST THE OTHER day we featured a Runyonesque tale about double dealing in the sports world and expressed our disappointment with the story's Big Reveal. With that in mind, today we travel to the Great White Way with the same author and the same character as they test the validity of . . .

"The Sherlock Holmes Theory."

By Jack Kofoed (John Christian Kofoed, 1894-1979).

Illustration by Parkhurst (1876-1962; HERE).

First appearance: Popular Detective, September 1950.

Reprinted in Popular Detective (Canada), September 1950.

Short short story (9 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "Baldy Simmons, the sage of Broadway, faces the fury of an armed killer in the dressing room of Julie Hart, dancer!"

Every gunsel seems to think he's not only smarter than the cops but also immortal—O'Hara, for instance, is of that opinion; but a gorgeous doll is about to prove how wrong a gunsel can be . . . .

Comment: This Baldy story isn't as entertainingly-written as the previous one, but plot-wise it's an improvement.

Main characters:

~ Julie Hart:

  "You mean to kill us?"

~ Captain Peter Bellamy:

  "Were it not that I have only three more years to go before starting to draw a pension, I walk straight down to West Street and jump into the river."

~ The taxi jockey:

  "Listen, mister. I ain't a hero and I do not wish to be a hero. If there are guys with guns in there let them go their own way. I go the other."

~ Harry Bushel:

  "I do not expect to see you here. As a matter of fact, I do not expect to see anyone I know."

~ O'Hara:

  "I want you to do me a favor."

~ Hippo Smyle:

  ". . . is the most stupid man I ever meet, all muscle and no mind."

~ Baldy Simmons:

  ". . . a phrase here and there if often the solution of a problem—and observation and deduction are not words to lie fallow in a dictionary."

Typo: "prlobably".

References and resources:

- "Moscow Mule": There's some uncertainty as to where it originated:

  "A Moscow mule is a cocktail made with vodka, spicy ginger beer, and lime juice, garnished with a slice or wedge of lime" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "at the Mocambo": Only an author can move a building two thousand miles in one sentence:

  "The Mocambo was a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, at 8588 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "into a cab, which is one of those two way radio affairs": Relatively new at the time:

  "Taxicabs proliferated around the world in the early 20th century. The first major innovation after the invention of the taximeter occurred in the late 1940s, when two-way radios first appeared in taxicabs" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "I turn to the stool-pigeons": Feathers they do not have:

  "Informants are extremely common in every-day police work, including homicide and narcotics investigations. The term 'stool pigeon' originates from the antiquated practice of tying a passenger pigeon to a stool. The bird would flap its wings in a futile attempt to escape. The sound of the wings flapping would attract other pigeons to the stool where a large number of birds could be easily killed or captured" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "reading Variety": Seems reasonable that Baldy would be a reader:

  "Variety has been published since December 16, 1905, when it was launched by Sime Silverman as a weekly periodical covering theater and vaudeville with its headquarters in New York City" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "an old-time speakeasy": "Swordfish":

  "Speakeasy bars came into prominence in the United States during the Prohibition era (1920–33, longer in some states). During that time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the United States. Speakeasies largely disappeared after Prohibition ended in 1933" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "like Ingrid Bergman": She could act, too:

  "Ingrid Bergman (1915-82) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays. With a career spanning five decades, she is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history" (Wikipedia HERE).

That's Ingrid on the right.

- For more about our author and his series character see our previous posting (HERE).

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True Crime Roundup V

According to these articles, in the '20s Prohibition was being vigorously, if nonsensically, enforced, drug addiction was on the rise, criminals weren't being prosecuted vigorously enough, and there was concern that young boys were rotting their brains with pulp fiction.

~ "Rum at Sea" (1923) [3 pages]:

. . . There seems to be a very general feeling among the papers, irrespective of their attitude toward Prohibition, that it would not be becoming for the Government to profit from the sale of liquor on the ships it actually owns, while forbidding such sale on foreign-owned ships in American waters.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (May 12, 1923)

~ "Our Million Drug Addicts" (1923) [2 pages]:

. . . To stop illicit distribution suddenly, with more than 50 per cent. of the physicians of the country still adhering to the 'vice' theory of opiate addiction, would only add to the suffering of thousands of innocent addicts who are forced by our laws to depend upon smugglers and peddlers for their narcotic supply. — THE LITERARY DIGEST (August 25, 1923)

~ " 'America First' - In Crime" (1923) [1 page]:

A 'SPORTING PUBLIC' which showers on the criminal, if he escapes, the sympathy usually extended to athletic and movie heroes, is largely to blame for the crime record of this country. This, at any rate, is the impression left in the minds of many American editors who are commenting on the vigorous indictment of our national lawlessness to be found in a recent report . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (September 15, 1923)

~ "What the Boys Are Reading" (1923) [1 page]:

. . . Dime novels began as rather good historical novels; at their worst they were no more than exciting stories written sometimes, but not always, in careless English. They were never immoral; on the contrary they reeked of morality.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (September 15, 1923)

Resources:
- Our last True Crime Roundup was HERE; you can find True Crime Roundups I HERE, II HERE, and III HERE.

Category: True crime

True Crime Roundup VIII

Crime doesn't pay, but that won't stop some people.

(1) "Saving Youth From Heroin and Crime" (1924) (2 pages):

     Apparently there has always been a correlation between drug addiction and criminal activity:

. . . In addition to the passage of the anti-heroin bill, which prohibits the importation, manufacture, transportation or use of the drug in the United States, it is further recommended by the Association that Congress send circulars on the general facts of addiction to schools, colleges and voters, and thus reach the 23,000,000 young people in the nation's educational institutions before the school year is ended.  . . .

"Heroin appeared in America only ten years ago. Its spread to the present proportions in so short a time is appalling and indicates new factors in the problem of addiction. These facts, defined and pointed out by the Association, are: Every heroin addict, because of the drug's action on his brain, has a mania to spread his addiction to others; the drug is four times as powerful as morphin and comes in the convenient deceptive form of a white powder, called 'snow,' which is generally 'whiffed' into the nostrils. One 'snow party' a day for a week makes a youth an addict."  . . .

(2) "A Congressman Sentenced to Prison" (1924) (1 page):
     Somebody has to be the first:

". . . The important fact is that no man in this country, no matter how high and powerful his official position, is above the law or beyond its punishments."  . . .

     According to Wikipedia (HERE):

. . . [Representative Langley, in office since 1907] resigned [from Congress] in January 11, 1926, after being convicted of illegally selling alcohol. Langley had deposited $115,000 in his bank account over a three-year period despite earning only $7,500 a year as a congressman. He had arranged for "medicinal" alcohol to be released to New York-based bootleggers during prohibition. He also tried to bribe a Prohibition officer. His wife Katherine, then ran for his seat and won in the next election, loudly declaring that her husband had been the victim of a conspiracy. She also won the next election as well.  . . .

(3) "Outwitting the Safe-Breaker" (1924) (1 page):
     Is any safe really safe?

. . . "Time is the most important factor making for the success or failure of the safe-breaker when attacking a bank vault. Manufacturers of burglar-proof vaults, therefore, are concerned with constructing a mechanism which will require a maximum amount of time to destroy."  . . .

See the Wikipedia article HERE for more about bank vaults.

(4) "Evidence Gathered by Suction" (1924) (¼ of a page):
     It's probably not what you might think:

[Full article] Microscopic examination of the dirt and dust upon the clothing of suspects is a new scheme of the French police to catch criminals, we learn from Science Service's Daily Science News Bulletin (Washington):

"After cross-examination, the suspects are stript of their clothing, whose superficial dust is first examined under a strong microscope. A vacuum-cleaner is next applied to draw out other dirt into a pan. In some instances a more thorough process, in which heating figures, is used to separate all particles of foreign matter. From the dirt thus secured the detectives determine whether the suspect has been telling the truth. One murderer tried to prove an alibi by saying that he had slept in an open field the night of the crime. Microscopic examination of his clothing showed that he had slept in a quarry. An unsuspected carpenter was connected with a murder by means of sawdust found on a piece of overall which the victim had torn from his assailant and which was found at the scene of the crime. The chief value of the new plan has been in breaking down the bravado of criminals. They frequently confess when shown that their first stories were lies."

(5) "Scientific Bandits Who Land in Jail" (1924) (2 pages):
     The Newton Gang strikes again:

THE EXPLOITS OF JESSE JAMES as a train-robber in Missouri come to mind as one reads of "the most daring train robbery in railroad history"—the hold-up near Chicago of a solid mail and express train and the theft of some forty pouches of registered mail, said to contain between $1,000,000 and $3,000,000.

Wearing gas-masks, and equipped with an airplane and four automobiles; armed with gas-bombs, nitro-glycerin, dynamite, sawed-off shotguns, and automatic pistols, according to the story told the St. Paul Dispatch by the mail clerks as they pulled into the station with shattered windows and bullet-marked cars, ten or a dozen bandits apparently terrorized seventy or more armed guards and mail clerks aboard the train and accomplished their purpose within ten minutes.

They forced their way into the barricaded cars by breaking the windows with rocks, and then threw in vials of gas, which broke as they landed upon the floor. The clerks and guards, nearly overcome by the fumes, were forced to open the doors. The leader then donned a gas-mask, placed another on the chief mail clerk, and forced him, at the point of a gun, to point out the valuable mail-sacks, which were thrown into the waiting automobiles. A few hours later two of the machines, showing hard usage, were found abandoned along the highway, and by daylight the next morning a hundred motorcycle policemen and nearly a thousand government and railroad detectives, deputy sheriffs, and special officers were on the bandits' trail.  . . .

From the Wikipedia article about the Newton Gang (HERE):

The Newton Gang (ca. 1919 through 1924) was an outlaw gang of the early 20th century, and the most successful train robbers and bank robbers in history. From 1919 through 1924 the gang robbed dozens of banks, claiming a number of eighty-seven banks (unconfirmed) and six trains (confirmed). According to Willis Newton, the brothers "took in more money than the Dalton Gang, Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch and the James-Younger Gang combined." Also according to their own claims, they never killed anyone. It's true they were never charged with any death or injuries associated with their robberies, although one daylight robbery in Toronto, Canada proved nearly fatal for one bank messenger. Notable enough for the 1924 train robbery near Rondout, Illinois (the world's largest at the time), the brothers gained a second round of fame in retirement, when they participated in a 1975 documentary film, and then a more in-depth oral history project that eventually was published in book form, possibly one of the clearest records of a criminal career of the period, as told by the participants. This second round of fame led to a feature film [The Newton Boys] being produced by a major Hollywood studio, after the death of the last surviving brother.  . . .

Resource:
- You can find True Crime VII HERE.

Category: True crime

"I Am Not Aware There Is Much Beyond Jupiter, but I Only Read the Sports Section"

"A Clean Sweep with All the Trimmings."
By James Alan Gardner (born 1955).
First appearance: Tor.com, December 14, 2011.
Novelette (28 pages).
Kindle edition HERE.
Online at Tor.com HERE.

"Presenting a new original science fiction story, 'A Clean Sweep with All the Trimmings,' by author James Alan Gardner, a Damon Runyon-esque tale of courteous guys, bulletproof dolls, and the fedora-clad spacemen that bring them together. This week marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the death of American writer Damon Runyon, best known for his delightful, distinctive prose style and for the series of post-Prohibition New York stories that eventually inspired the musical Guys and Dolls."

Ordinarily Madame Rosa's is the place where guys who are so inclined can find cupcake dolls in abundance, but today it is not exactly a safe place for anyone to be in.

Our unnamed narrator—a guy whose job is to clean up messes made by other people who, let us say, do not have a high regard for the law and wish to avoid entanglements with the same—is called to Madame Rosa's "establishment" because it has suddenly become a free fire zone, with bullets flying all over the place; except for the ones coming out of a tommy gun belonging to a doll from upstairs ("a gift from an admirer"), most of them have been fired by these guys who wear green fedoras, have glowing red palms, and spill wires and green blood when they are perforated. What is hard to understand is that their targets are not peccant husbands or two-timing boyfriends like you might think but the cupcake dolls themselves, prompting our narrator to observe: "That is a waste of good dolls."

Twenty sticks of dynamite later Madame Rosa's is no more, so that there is nothing left to interest Mr. J. Edgar Hoover; but in cleaning up the mess our narrator meets Kitty, a most unusual doll as he soon discovers:

   "'Kitty,' I say, 'you are the first doll I meet who is bulletproof.'
   "'You do not mind, do you?'
   "'It is a fine way to be. I often wish it for myself. However, I now suspect you have secrets.'"

Oh, she has secrets all right, including a big one concerning just who—and what—she really is . . .

More often than not our author precisely nails the "Runyonese" (see below for what that is):

   "My last doll leaves me for a shoe salesman, and it is a hard blow when a doll decides you are lower than a guy who spends all day on his knees."

   "The guy who sells me this truck tells me it has safety glass, but if so, it is the same type of safety you get from safe bets with FiveAce McQueen."

   ". . . we leave the vicinity, since cops and firemen will soon arrive, and as a good citizen, I do not wish to get in the way of their duties."

   "Before you can say, 'Speak of the devil,' a guy walks in wearing a green fedora. I do not wish to keep encountering this individual. I am running out of trashcans. Furthermore, there is a limit on the number of shootouts that can happen in public places before someone gets hurt. As if to illustrate this point, the guy in the green fedora pulls out a John Roscoe and fires it, taking off a citizen’s ear. Luckily, it is only a waiter and not a good waiter at that, because once I order a juniper sundae from him and he does not understand what I mean."

   "When a doll cries, it is about something very small or very big, and both ways, a guy is out of his depth."

Resources:
- You can find out a lot more about James Alan Gardner (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), and at his homepage (HERE).
- Mike Grost explains how Damon Runyon (1880-1946) correlates with the universe of fiction:

Damon Runyon became famous in the 1930's for his humorous, and highly original, short stories about Broadway low lifes, gamblers, crooks and bootleggers. Aside from the fact that many of Damon Runyon's tales have crooks as their protagonists, his stories have little in common with the Rogue School. Rogue literature forms a well defined tradition of elegant crooks committing ingenious thefts, while impersonating members of the upper classes and thumbing their nose at the police. There is nothing of this in Runyon. One would never confuse his Nicely Nicely Johnson or Dave the Dude with such authentic rogues as Raffles or the Saint. Mainstream critics have always been puzzled about where to place Runyon in the scheme of things. He is a writer with no literary prestige among academic critics, but he hardly fits in with the genre of mystery fiction, either. — Mike Grost, "Damon Runyon" (HERE), A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection 

- In addition to James Alan Gardner, it's easy to see why Damon Runyon has been an inspiration to other writers:

He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted. He spun humorous and sentimental tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit", "Benny Southstreet", "Big Jule", "Harry the Horse", "Good Time Charley", "Dave the Dude", or "The Seldom Seen Kid." His distinctive vernacular style is known as "Runyonese": a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions. He is credited with coining the phrase "Hooray Henry", a term now used in British English to describe an upper-class, loud-mouthed, arrogant twit. — Wikipedia, "Damon Runyon" (HERE)

- We've spent a little time with Runyon ourselves (HERE).

The bottom line: "Sure, I'm legit. I'm in favor of law and order. But you don't have to have it right in your own house, do you?"
   — Remy Marco

"Science Fiction Authors Can Follow the Rules Just As Easily As the Authors of Today's Whodunits"

"The Futuristic Detective."
By Robert W. Lowndes (1916-98).
First appearance: Science Fiction Stories, January 1959.
Editorial article (6 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE) and The Luminist Archives (HERE) (scroll down to page 102—note: a slow load is certain).

   A really well-done old-fashioned murder mystery is quite rare these days, but even rarer is one with a science fiction/fantasy (SFF-nal) theme. Back in the '50s, uber-editor Robert Lowndes expressed hope that SFF authors would come up with more of them in the future, basing his conception of what a true-blue SFF-nal detective story should be on S. S. Van Dine's prescriptive rules dating from the '20s, most of which, in Lowndes's estimation, were still viable regarding what ought to and ought not to be used in a story. A worthy goal, certainly, but Lowndes evidently didn't get the memo from the hardboiled "realistic" crowd and their publisher cohorts that, as far as they were concerned, the traditional whodunit was, for all practical purposes, dead and buried . . .

A few excerpts:
   "In following them [Van Dine's rules], the science fiction author can produce a story which, in so far as it is a puzzle for the reader to solve if he can, is as much of a sporting event as the offerings of Agatha Christie or Rex Stout . . ."

   "A 'clue' does not have to be an object: It may be an event, a reaction on the part of some character, or a description of the scenery or setting which the detective has seen—but which he does not identify as a clue at the time."

   "One well-used, but entirely legitimate, device is a character's 'evidence' which appears to be substantiated by someone else, but actually is not—we really only have this character's word for it." [Lowndes cites JDC's The Emperor's Snuff-Box: "the trickery was legitimate."]

   "Van Dine here specifically rules out 'mind reading,' and this necessarily holds for the ordinary murder mystery. But in science fiction 'telepathy' could play a role so long as it is properly controlled." [In the '50s and '60s, mind readers were often called "psi's" or "espers."]

   "The culprit, too, must be a major character in the story—not a stranger or bit-part player—and someone in whom the reader takes an interest." [And not doing so is still a common reader complaint these days—except when authors fall in love with their characters and forget they're writing a mystery with a plot.]

   "In this passage, he [Van Dine] rules out '. . . pseudo-science and imaginative and specu-
lative devices'—again, a sound prohibition for the ordinary detective tale. And it is this taboo which has made so many feel that we just can't have a 'fair' murder mystery in science fiction."

   "I think we can agree that the culprit should not be a professional criminal . . . The guilty one must not have any sort of organization to fall back upon that any other ordinary person might not have." ["organization": the Mafia, SPECTRE, and the like.]

   "Like Van Dine, we insist upon murder (although lesser crimes may also be involved) for the main misdeed investigated—and the 'murder' must not turn out to have been accident or suicide."

  "The 'sporting' detective story of our times has a fine tradition, which continues, despite 
the accumulation of shoddy imitations . . ."

Resources:
- Our author, Robert Augustine Ward Lowndes, is remembered primarily these days for his SFF-nal editorial efforts, although he produced a respectable amount of fiction over the years. Like Isaac Asimov before him, Lowndes took it as a challenge to come up with an authentic science fiction detective story; he explains his thinking here:

  "Back in the early '40s, I remember a bull-session that some of us had with John W. Campbell, where he stated definitively that there could never be any such thing as a science-fiction detective story in the traditional 'murder mystery' sense. His reason for this proclamation was that since almost anything can happen in a science-fiction story – the villain can pull any sort of dingus or super-phenomenon out of his hat – the reader would never have a fair chance to solve the mystery. I didn’t quite believe it, yet I couldn’t think of any counter-argument to throw at John at the time. But, as Holmes would have said, it was all so absurdly simple! Of course there can be science-fiction murder mysteries, offering the reader as good a chance to solve the crime as he has in any ordinary murder-mystery where the author is playing fair. And you can have science-fiction wonders and dinguses and super-scientific phenomenon, too: you just make it clear that nothing essential to the solution of the crime is wrapped up in super-science, or intricate phenomenon and extrapolation that only a scientific wizard could be expected to unravel. The motives, methods, and clues must all lie within the range of what is clearly presented to the reader. I hope Puzzle Planet will convince you that the murder mystery does have a place in science fiction."
   — "The Puzzle Planet," Wikipedia (HERE; no major spoilers)

- Lots of information about Lowndes is on the Interweb: Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), Fancyclopedia (HERE), and the bibliography at the ISFDb (HERE).
- Lowndes also wrote a "juvenile" space opera for Winston books, Mystery of the Third Mine (1953).

- To our surprise, we've discovered since we started this weblog that quite a few SFF stories involve criminous activities—never fear, we'll continue our never-ending search for them on the World Wide Webbie. Here, picked at random, are just a few of our previous postings about crime-and-science fiction mashups:
   Anthony Boucher's "Public Eye" (HERE), Fletcher Pratt's "Double Jeopardy" and "The Square Cube Law" (HERE)
   Henry Hasse's "We're Friends Now" (HERE), Adam Christopher's "Brisk Money" (HERE)
   Sam Moskowitz's "The Sleuth in Science Fiction" and "The Super-Sleuths of Science Fiction" (HERE)
   Fredric Brown's "Daymare" (HERE), Daniel F. Galouye's "Kangaroo Court" (HERE)
   Sydney J. Bounds's "Time for Murder" (HERE), Guy Archette's "Not As Plotted" (HERE)
   Mike Adamson's "Masques" (HERE), and David Berreby's "The Punishment Fits the Crime" (HERE).
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"You Think I'd Go Out for Business with a Pearl-Handled Thirty-Two, a Lady's Gun?"

SOMETIMES AUTHORS decide to tell their stories using a character as a narrative mouth-piece, which Damon Runyon did very successfully for years; so here we have a regular guy giving us . . .

"The Low-Down."
By Edward L. McKenna (1893-1953).

Illustrations by Raymond Sisley (1892-1963; HERE).
First appearance: Blue Book, March 1950.

Short short story (5 pages; 3 illos).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "A dramatic scene on that road to Hell that is paved with good intentions."

A tale of irony and woe . . .

Major characters:
~ Spike:
  "That's why I am in this jam."
~ Whitey:

  "He don't think anybody can run a lawnmower in Central Park without he gets some 

advice from Whitey and gives him a cut."

~ Daisy Varden:
  "Still and all, she's always Daisy Varden, and Daisy Varden was tops in the night-club business for my money."
~ Clara Purcelle:
  "This dizzy tramp gets an awful crying jag."

References:
~ "since Prohibition" (Wikipedia HERE); "long past repeal". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "Sweet [actually Miss] Annabelle Lee". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "the Big Apple". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "out in Joliet". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "a gat" (Wikipedia HERE); "I don't pack no rod" (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "she tops for night-clubs". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "on Pullmans". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "a hot rhumba". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "they're yeggs". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "a booster": a shoplifter (Merriam-Webster HERE) , "or a dip": a pickpocket (Merriam-Webster HERE), "or a pineapple" (from the context it could be a criminal of some sort).

~ "two yards and a half": One yard = $100. (Merriam-Webster HERE).

~ "the ice": diamonds, jewelry. (Merriam-Webster HERE).

~ "Equity". (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "A Sullivan Act violation!" (Wikipedia HERE).

~ Well-known chanteuses and one songwriter: "Sophie Tucker" (Wikipedia HERE), "Fay Templeton" (Wikipedia HERE), "Nora Bayes" (Wikipedia HERE), "Marie Lloyd" (Wikipedia HERE), and "Walter Donaldson" (Wikipedia HERE).

Resources:
- The FictionMags Index thumbnail about Edward Lawrence McKenna: "Author, columnist, assistant professor of insurance at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Brooklyn, New York; died in Baltimore, Pennsylvania."
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