1938: Crime

In 1938, as in previous years, crime was one of the country's major occupations. This is evident from the Uniform Crime Reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They indicate that over half a million major crimes (murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft) were committed and came to the attention of the police in 1,804 cities with a total population of approximately 62,000,000 during the first nine months of 1938. On this basis, the estimated crime total for the country as a whole, for the entire year of 1938, for only eight major offenses, is one and a half million crimes.

As in previous years, the great bulk of the crimes committed were crimes against property. According to the Uniform Crime Reports, 95.6 per cent of the crimes reported during the first nine months of 1938 were 'committed for the purpose of obtaining property. The remaining 4.4 per cent consisted of homicides, rapes and other felonious assaults.' Some conception of what the latter crimes mean in terms of human life is had from the fact that 2,403 crimes reported for the first nine months were murder and non-negligent manslaughter. On this basis, for the entire country and for the year as a whole, it may be estimated that approximately 6,600 homicides were committed. In other words, 6,600 people met their death through intentional criminal violence.

Large as these crime figures are, it cannot be stated that crime is increasing. Indeed, the evidence points to a downward trend in all of the eight major crimes noted above, with the exception of rape and larceny. This is indicated by data collected from 60 large cities with a total population of over 18,000,000 for the eight years 1931-8 inclusive. These data show that 1931 was the peak year in negligent manslaughter, robberies, and auto thefts. 1933 leads the other years in murders, aggravated assaults and burglary. Only in rape and larceny is 1938 supreme.

The fingerprint records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicate that crime during 1938 was essentially a masculine occupation. Approximately 14 men were arrested for every woman. There were more male arrests in every crime except commercialized vice.

Of all persons arrested during 1938, whose fingerprints were sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 19 per cent were under 21 years of age. These youthful offenders concentrated largely on crimes against property. Although they represented but 19 per cent of the total persons arrested for all crimes, they constituted 31.5 per cent of the persons arrested for crimes against property. Burglary, and breaking and entering were the special favorites of youthful offenders under 21. They constituted 43.6 per cent of all persons arrested for these offenses.

Many of the persons arrested during the year had prior criminal records. On the 432,527 who were arrested and whose fingerprints were sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the first nine months of 1938, 197,540 or 45 per cent had prior fingerprint cards on file in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These cards indicated that 120,639, or 27.9 per cent of those arrested had been convicted previously of one or more crimes.

Kidnapping.

The year 1938, like other years, had its allotment of spectacular crimes. Two kidnappings had the same tragic consequences as the Lindbergh case. In one, Peter Levine, a boy of 12 living in New Rochelle, New York was kidnapped on February 24. A ransom of $30,000 was asked for. Despite assurances that the ransom would be paid, the body of the boy was found three months after the kidnapping, when washed ashore from Long Island Sound. As in the Lindbergh case, the difficulties of contacting the actual kidnappers and saving the life of the boy were immeasurably increased by the many criminals who tried to turn the kidnapping to their own advantage. Seven different individuals were indicted and convicted of sending fake ransom notes and attempting to extort money from the parents of the Levine boy. At the end of the year, however, the actual kidnappers and murderers of the boy remained unpunished.

James Bailey Cash, Jr., aged 5 years, was also kidnapped in Princeton, Fla., on May 28, 1938. A ransom of $10,000 was paid, but the child was not returned. On June 9 his body was found one half mile west of his home in Princeton in a clump of underbrush. Unlike the Levine kidnapping the Cash kidnapping was cleared up shortly after the body was found. The kidnapper was one Franklin Pierce McCall, a farm worker and former occupant of an apartment in the Cash home. McCall pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and was sentenced to death.

Sex Crimes.

That murder is frequently resorted to as a solution for problems of sex, is illustrated by two murder cases which made the headlines in 1938. In the Littlefield murder case, the state charged that Francis Carroll killed Dr. Littlefield and his wife because the doctor had learned of Carroll's illicit sex relations with his (Carroll's) daughter and had threatened to send him to prison. One Paul Dwyer had previously pleaded guilty to the murder of the Littlefields. He had been found in an automobile which contained the bodies of Dr. and Mrs. Littlefield.

In the Gedeon murder case, sex and an unbalanced mind combined to produce three murders. In the Spring of 1937, Robert Erwin, a sculptor and former inmate of an insane asylum, killed Veronica Gedeon, a professional model, her mother, Mary Gedeon, and a roomer, Frank Burns. Erwin's motive, according to the police, was to avenge himself on the Gedeons for interfering with his romance with the sister of Veronica. The killing of Burns was purely fortuitous. Erwin was brought to trial in 1938, after having pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. In the course of the trial, however, the not guilty plea was withdrawn and Erwin pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree. He was sentenced to a total of 139 years' imprisonment.

Nazi Espionage.

A repercussion of Nazi Germany's world-wide offensive against the democratic countries was had in the Germany spy trials. Eighteen persons were indicted last June for conspiracy to disclose American military secrets to Germany. Only four of the eighteen, Guenther Gustave Rumrich, former Sergeant in the United States Army, Otto Hermann Voss, an aircraft mechanic, Erich Glaser, a private at Mitchell Field, and Johanna Hofmann, a hair dresser of the German liner. Europa, were brought to trial. The rest of the conspirators fled from the country. Rumrich had been arrested in an attempt to steal passport blanks. He implicated several German-Americans in a plot to steal army aircraft designs and military secrets. At the trial he told of attempts to persuade service men to enter the German spy service and to send abroad the Z-Code used for communication between army airplanes and landing fields. He also testified to schemes for obtaining plans of new aircraft carriers by means of a forged letter on imitation White House stationery, and to attempts to obtain passport blanks for sending German agents into Russia to obtain secret mobilization plans. All of the above defendants were found guilty.

Musica Case.

Big business and high finance produced the most sensational crimes against property during the year 1938. The weirdest and most improbable crime was the Coster case. F. Donald Coster was president of the McKesson & Robbins Company, an $86,000,000 drug concern. Until shortly before his suicide, he was a respected member of the business fraternity. The cloak of respectability, however, shielded a very shady past. F. Donald Coster was in fact Philip Musica, who had been convicted of bribing customs officials in 1909, in connection with the importation of cheese and again in 1913 for defrauding a number of business concerns of over half a million dollars in the notorious 'human hair' scandal. He was also indicted for subornation of perjury in 1920 in connection with the famous 'chicken murder' of Barnett Baff. As Coster, in the 1920's, he was suspected of carrying on bootleg operations in connection with the hair tonic concern of Girard & Company, which was later merged with McKesson & Robbins.

As president of the McKesson & Robbins Company. Musica ran true to his previous character. He placed his brothers (two of whom had been implicated in previous scandals with him) in positions of trust in the company under assumed names. He then siphoned away the assets of the crude drug department of the McKesson & Robbins Company so that assets carried on the books for $18,000,000 were found to be non-existent. Coster's three brothers have pleaded guilty to Federal indictments for conspiracy to falsify financial statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They have also been indicted by the New York County Grand Jury for larceny of moneys of the McKesson & Robbins Company and forgery of Dun & Bradstreet credit reports.

The crimes of Coster in connection with the McKesson & Robbins Company were those of a confirmed swindler who pursued his criminal activities despite the fact that he had attained a position of eminence in the business world.

Whitney Case.

A similar explanation cannot be offered for the derelictions of Richard Whitney. The latter, a respected financial magnate and socialite, a former president of the New York Stock Exchange and president of one of the strongest and most conservative stock exchange houses, resorted to the misappropriation of securities of his friends and customers in order to raise money for his financial ventures. 'With full knowledge of the consequences,' states the report of District Attorney Dewey, 'he embarked upon a deliberate course of criminal conduct covering a period of six years, involving larcenies, frauds and misrepresentations and the falsification of books and financial statements. . . . By reason of the position held by the defendant, his conduct has amounted to a betrayal of a public trust.'

Richard Whitney was indicted for grand larceny, for the misappropriation of securities of the estate of George R. Sheldon, of which he was a co-trustee, and of the misappropriation of the securities of the New York Yacht Club, of which he was Treasurer. The sum involved in these two larcenies was $210,000. Whitney pleaded guilty to both indictments and was sentenced to serve from five to ten years in Sing Sing Prison.

Hines Trial.

One of the most spectacular events of the year in the field of organized crime was the Hines Trial. James J. Hines, the defendant, was one of the most powerful leaders of Tammany Hall. He was accused of 'contriving, proposing or drawing lotteries' and of entering into a conspiracy with 'Dutch Schultz' and 'Dixie' Davis. George Weinberg, and other notorious characters, to violate the lottery laws. According to the prosecution, Hines' part in the conspiracy was to provide official protection for the 'policy racket' or the 'numbers game,' which has flourished in Harlem and other sections of New York during the past few years. Hines was charged with influencing Magistrates Capshaw and Erwin to throw out policy cases in which the other conspirators had an interest, and to influence former District Attorney Dodge to 'go easy' on policy prosecutions. In return for his efforts, Hines was alleged to have received a cut in the proceeds of the policy racket.

The chief significance of the Hines case is that it presented the unusual spectacle of one of the 'higherups' in a racket being compelled to stand trial. For years it has been accepted as axiomatic that certain types of organized criminal activity, such as commercialized vice, gambling, illicit liquor traffic, etc., cannot flourish without official protection. Yet one rarely saw corrupt politicians or officials being brought to book for these crimes. Occasionally, it is truce, a policeman might be indicted or even convicted for accepting graft from houses of prostitution, gambling houses or speakeasies. But criminal prosecution rarely reached higher than the individual policeman. In the Hines case, however, the prosecution touched what was alleged to be the very source of the official protection, namely, the politician from whom judges, prosecutors and policemen took orders.

The trial had a very unsatisfactory outcome. A question by District Attorney Dewey which was put to a witness, tending to implicate Hines in other crimes than the ones with which he was charged, was considered so prejudicial by Justice Pecora, that he granted a mistrial. The case was to be retried early in 1939

Law Enforcement Methods.

In the field of criminal law and criminal law enforcement, three tendencies were principally in evidence in 1938:

(1) Centralized leadership in the improvement of the agencies of law enforcement.

Law enforcement agencies throughout this country have been organized traditionally on a local basis; the city, county or judicial district serving as the basis of jurisdiction. Each agency was more or less independent of every other. Thus, tremendous disparities of organization and efficiency could exist in the same state, and even in the same county, between law-enforcement agencies engaged in similar tasks. This situation is highly undesirable as it benefits only the criminal.

Centralized leadership has therefore been felt to be necessary to bring law-enforcement agencies up to minimum standards of efficiency. An example of this type of leadership is the Federal Aid Bill now before Congress, which has the support of the American Prison Association. The Bill provides for an appropriation of $10,000,000 'for the purpose of assisting the several states and other political sub-divisions to provide adequate housing and constructive educational employment and treatment facilities for those who have been convicted of crime, or who are held for trial or as witnesses,' and $2,500,000 'for the purpose of assisting the several states and their political subdivisions to establish and maintain, in accordance with adequate and scientific standards, properly safeguarded systems for the supervision of offenders released (1) by probation, (2) by parole, (3) by any form of conditional release.' Through this Act the Federal Government can take the initiative in securing for the country as a whole, modern scientific methods of prison treatment as well as sound systems of dealing with probationers and paroles.

(2) The desire to simplify and modernize codes of criminal procedure and the processes of criminal justice.

The impetus in this field is provided by the Model Code of Criminal Procedure which was adopted by the American Law Institute in 1931. Practically every legislative commission or bar association engaged in a re-examination of the law on criminal procedure takes the Model Code as a starting point for its work. Its provisions have been adopted in whole or in part in many states in the last few years, and the influence of the Code was still in evidence during 1938. In New York, for example, a commission on the administration of justice prepared a comprehensive revision of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The original Code was prepared in 1850, but was not adopted until 1881. The Code has not been revised since that date, although hundreds of amendments and amendments to amendments have been adopted.

The Commission on the Administration of Justice made a thorough study of the Model Code and based many of its recommendations for the codification of New York criminal procedure on provisions of the Model Code. The work of the commission will be presented to the next session of the New York Legislature.

(3) The growing realization that progress dealing with crime lies in the direction of preventive methods rather than repressive methods.

This is illustrated by the steps which the various states have taken to improve and extend juvenile delinquency laws and the treatment of juvenile and adult offenders as well as the progress which has been made in the direction of improving systems of probation and parole. Some states are going even further and are attempting to set up machinery for dealing with basic factors in delinquency. For example, the establishment of a bureau of crime prevention was recommended by the Prison Association of New York, and this proposal will come before the New York Legislature. The function of this bureau will be (1) to stimulate state departments to develop their facilities and methods to control the factors entering into delinquency and crime; (2) to visit, study and evaluate conditions in communities throughout the state and advise local agencies as to the organization and development of needed programs; (3) collate, interpret and publicize statistics and reports relating to the problem of juvenile delinquency and crime; (4) as need arises, to prepare and sponsor legislation bearing upon crime prevention; (5) develop a plan of crime prevention which would serve as a guide to various communities; (6) to evaluate the work that is being done by crime prevention organizations throughout the state.

It is to be hoped that the New York Legislature will approve the recommendations of the Prison Association. Such an organization, if intelligently administered, could do much to strike at the fundamental roots of crime.