VIII
BEHIND CUSTOMS SCREENS
The effrontery of this special agent, you would quite naturallyconclude, was ridiculous. You approve of the sort of courage that makesa man willing to tackle almost any big task, but you also recognize thelimitations of the individual. David with his slingshot had an obviouschance of success. If he could make a scratch shot and land on the cocoof Mr. Goliath he would win. But Special Agent Billy Gard sallied forthnonchalantly against the whole army of Philistines, apparently withouteven a slingshot.
The Philistines in this case were typified by the customs crowd of theport of New York. That crowd was a ring within the administration of theaffairs of that greatest of gateways that had built up a system fordiverting a million of dollars a year from the pocket of Uncle Sam andappropriating the money to itself. For twenty-five years the men of thisinner circle had steadily strengthened their positions, their hold uponthose in authority, their power to shake down importers. There is agreat influence to be wielded by a million dollars a year in the handsof willing spenders.
The development of this condition of affairs was based primarily uponthe fact that positions in the customs service are dependent uponpolitics. The men who built up the system of customs graft had securedtheir appointments because they had political influence. They afterwardused that influence and put their easy money back of it. Their powergrew. It made it possible for them to dictate appointments moreimportant than their own, even to the collectorship itself. It made itpossible for them to bring about the removal of any smaller official whoseemed to stand in their way. Men not in the ring learned to wink atmany things that they saw. When an emissary of the crooked customs crowdwent to an importer, even where he was honest, it came to be known thatit was wise to listen to any proposal made. Thus did the machine gatherforce.
Just one example of the workings of the system. An Italian namedCostello was an importer of cheese. He was a successful, enterprisingand honest merchant. One day he received a large shipment from Italy,upon which he expected to pay a duty of $10,000. The cargo was unloadedand weighed by the customs representatives. That night an emissary ofthe ring called upon the Italian merchant. He showed the record ofweights for the cheese cargo. According to this record Costello wouldhave had to pay a duty of $5,000. It showed but half the weight incheese that had actually arrived.
"We save you $5,000," said the spokesman. "We expect you to divide theprofit."
"But I believe in dealing honestly with the Government," said Costello."I have always done so and I have prospered."
"My tip to you," said the go-between, "is to do as the weighers suggest.They could as easily have charged you overweight as underweight.Besides, you will save much money."
The importer, a foreigner, thus advised by representatives of theGovernment of his adoption, took the tip and thereafter profitedthrough this official corruption and shared the duties thus saved.Costello received most of his goods as part of what were known as"Mediterranean cargoes," cheese, macaroni, olive oil. The Government wasafterward found to have been losing an average of $20,000 on eachMediterranean cargo that came to port.
The case is typical. The representatives of the Government practicallyforced the importers into these deceptions. The customs service andcommercial New York became permeated with this sort of fraud.
Henry L. Stimson was appointed United States district attorney in 1909and determined to clean up these customs frauds. William Loeb, Jr., wascollector of the port, and of the same mind. The two men got their headstogether and considered ways and means. A big cleanup followed and inbringing it about the work of Detective Billy Gard played a mostimportant part.
This young special agent was told to go out and master the detail of NewYork customs, a service that was new to him, to come to understand themso well that he could place his finger on the points where things weregoing wrong, to pick out the men in the service who were corrupt, toget his information in such form that it would be admissible in court asevidence and so strong that it would insure convictions. He was to doall this in the face of the unfriendliness of the service he was tostudy, despite all the stumbling-blocks that would be put in his way, inopposition to the dominant political machine of the port, in the face ofa lack of any special knowledge of the service. Young Gard accepted theassignment with a grin.
"What are you doing on the customs cases?" District Attorney Stimsonasked three weeks later.
"Going to the baseball games," said Gard.
"I hadn't noticed any cargoes being unloaded out that way," saidStimson. "How long have you been a fan?"
"Just a week," said the special agent. "Never attended a game before inmy life. I sit in the nice, warm sun of the bleachers to the right amongthe fanatics. I have learned to keep a score card already."
And such were actually the facts. To solve the riddle of the customsfrauds Agent Gard was working hard at the task of becoming a baseballfan.
Two weeks he had devoted to the docks. During the first of these weekshe had gone from wharf to wharf and from man to man. He had asked manyquestions which were but the common places that any individual whowanted to get a smattering of the detail of such a business would haveasked. He was received tolerantly by the old heads of the customs crowd.Many agents had been to the docks ahead of him and most of these hadbeen experts. If they began to get dangerous, political influence wasused in having them pulled off the job or money was used in having themfail to report any wrongdoing. But this youngster who did not know thesimplest things about the customs service--he was hardly worthy ofnotice.
But during that week Gard had not expected to become a customs expert.His plan for getting results was founded on a different idea. He hadbeen hunting for a man who suited the purpose of his plan, and had foundhim. This man was an Irishman by the name of O'Toole, who was one of theweighers at a certain dock in Brooklyn. He had in the back of his headall the facts that the special agent lacked. If he could be induced tocooperate, the case might be worked out.
O'Toole was a man of fifty, and had been a weigher for eleven years.Gard had learned many things about him. He had no family, his greatenthusiasm was baseball, and his weakness was a certainty of going tothe mat with John Barleycorn every third Saturday night. He was alonesome man, and sour and cynical.
"How long have you been on this investigation?" O'Toole asked Gardbefore the conversation had gone far.
"Just this week," said the special agent.
"Have you found anything?" asked the weigher.
"Not yet," said the special agent.
"Well, if you want your job to last, don't," said the Irishman.
They discussed the general points in the business of weighing cargoesand the work of the force having it in charge. But the special agent hadgathered the idea that O'Toole was not in sympathy with conditions, thathe was not a member of the inner circle. Yet an intelligent man servingas weigher for eleven years would know secrets that would be of interestto the Government, and O'Toole was embittered. He should be cultivated.
The days of the following week the special agent spent about the docksdressed as a rough laboring man. The nights he spent in nearby saloonswith the acquaintances he had made during the day. The idea in this wasto determine what information the laborers were able to pick up andwhether they could be used as informers. Many of these were Irishmen, assmart as the best of them, and pretty well aware of what was going on.From the gossip of these men it was also possible to get many a flash onthe character of the men higher up. O'Toole they pronounced honest.
"They won't give him a chance to get on the inside," said one, "becausethey are afraid he might talk when he is drunk."
"He wouldn't take dirty money, anyway," insisted another. "He is anhonest man."
The third week the special agent was devoting to the ball park, sittingin the bleachers three seats back of O'Toole. He had determined that theIrishman should tell him the story of the customs frauds from theinside. He knew that, to get on a basis of suffici
ent good feeling tobring this about, he must approach O'Toole on the most favorable basispossible. Too much care could not be taken in laying the foundation forhis final proposal to the weigher. The man's love for baseball firstpresented itself. The agent determined to become a fellow fan with him.Thus should he come to know him better and under most favorablecircumstances.
On two occasions the special agent bowed to the weigher in leaving thebleachers. He had thus got himself identified in that individual's mindas a fellow fan. It was the end of the second week, however, before theconditions developed that made just the opening that Gard wanted. Thesituation worked itself out on Saturday afternoon. The game had gonethree innings when a flurry of rain threatened to bring it to a close.Then there was a downpour. The people in the bleachers scurried forshelter. There seemed little chance for the game being resumed, and mostof the bleacherites filed out under their umbrellas.
Some twenty enthusiastic fans held to their seats on the chance that thegame would go on. Among these were O'Toole and the special agent. Bothwere drenched to the skin. Finally the umpire announced that the gamewas called, and the stragglers turned homeward. As O'Toole started to gohe was greeted by Special Agent Gard.
"By jove," said the young man, "I believe you are a more enthusiasticfan than I am."
"They shouldn't have called the game for a few drops of water,"complained the saturated weigher. "But let us go some place and get adrink."
Whereupon the two dripping fans found their way to a nearby barroom andtalked of club standings and batting averages while they warmed up withcopious drafts of red-eyed liquor.
"Boy," said the weigher, after the fourth drink, "have you got afamily?"
"No," answered Gard. "I am not married."
"Go get married," urged the older man. "When you begin to get old andhave only a solitary room to which to go and no children norgrandchildren to give you an interest in the world, there is nothing tolive for. You perform your small duties with a great void in the backof your mind. There is no stage setting that makes the petty play seemworth while. The only relief is an occasional Saturday night when youforget."
The special agent began to realize that the weigher was starting on histri-weekly fling. It also began to be evident that he was of the orderof inebriates who indulge in a debauch of self-pity as an accompanimentto their liquor.
"It always seemed to me," said the special agent, "that a man couldbecome so absorbed in his work that it would fill his whole life.Particularly should this be true when he has a task so important asyours."
"Mother of Mary!" exclaimed the Irishman. "Become absorbed in watching abunch of thieves always at work? Would you like to spend your decliningyears in sitting idly by and watching your employer and benefactorrobbed?"
"Why do this?" said Gard. "Why not lay the whole thing before the rightauthority and do a worth-while piece of work in cleaning up theservice?"
"Yes, and be broken and thrown into the discard to starve," was thereply. "I have seen too many of them go up against the gang. None of itfor O'Toole.
"Just one tip I will give you," said the weigher after hearing thespecial agent's argument in favor of lending his aid to showing up thefrauds. "If you will examine the records of Mediterranean cargoes youwill find that, during the past ten years, such cargoes have regularlybeen about twice as heavy when handled by certain weighers as whenhandled by others. The men whose records show these cargoes always lightare the crooks. Those who show them heavy are honest. The solution ismerely a matter of mathematics."
With this semiconfidence the agent contented himself. He continued to goto the baseball games, but met O'Toole only casually. In the meantimethe records of weighers were being examined. In a week the figures werecomplete. They showed these men divided into two groups that were farapart with relation to the weights of cargoes. The group that weighedlight was the larger.
A few days later Gard saw O'Toole after a ball game. He told the weigherthat District Attorney Stimson wanted to see him that night at theFederal building, that the district attorney was under great obligationsto him for the tip to examine weigher's records and wanted to thank him.
"O'Toole," said the district attorney that night, "this is a time whenthe Government needs the aid of honest men. We know that men who wouldclean up customs graft have, in the past, come to grief. But this is notnow true. I have taken up your case with the Secretary of the Treasuryhimself. That official asks me to inform you that, in case you aid us incleaning up this situation, your place will not only be made secure butthat you should figure that the service will be remembered in the lightof your future interests. We know that your record is clean. We wantyour help. Are you with us?"
Agent Gard had selected the right man. O'Toole, at first timid in hisfear of the ring, became an enthusiast over the task of weeding out thegraft. The dominance of local politicians had no terrors for him withWashington at his back. The value of all he had learned in eleven yearsat the scales was made to supplement the lack of customs experience onthe part of the special agent. His acquaintance with the customs forcein the port made his information invaluable. So enthusiastic did hebecome that he missed three ball games in succession and went past fourSaturday nights without his customary tussle with the spirits that bringforgetfulness.
O'Toole confirmed much of the list of short-weight employees that hadbeen made up. Of the derelictions of many of these he had personalknowledge. With their methods he was entirely familiar and was able topoint the way toward the establishing of guilt so it would be admissibleas evidence and would secure convictions.
That an individual weigher may report short weights it is necessary thathis associate at the scales, a checker, should share in his deceptions,for the checker is a witness of the record of the scales. In thecelebrated short weight cases of the sugar scandals, the checker had asteel spring like a corset stay that he thrust into the mechanism of thescale and retarded it, thus resulting in a showing of short weight. Butin the case of the Mediterranean cargoes the fraud was less disguised.The scales were allowed to record the proper weight, but the weigherand the checker, in collusion, divided the figure by two in setting itdown. The system was both simple and effective. It worked fortwenty-five years.
Gard consulted with O'Toole upon the advisability of using workmen aboutthe docks as informers. The weigher thought this could be done and knewa number of men who might be so used. A laborer, for instance, workingabout the scales, was able to see the amount that the beam registered atgiven times. He could easily remember the big numbers, those thatrepresented the thousands of pounds, until he had a chance to set themdown. He could thus get a rough record of the weighing of a given halfday. This could afterward be compared with the figures of the weigher. Apretty close check could thus be put on the given suspects.
By such methods fairly clear cases were obtained against given weighersand checkers. After much information was gathered certain guilty menwould be selected who would be given chances to tell all about theirknowledge of the frauds. These men would be given immunity. Thus would afew of the guilty escape punishment; but thus, also, would theGovernment learn all the details of the frauds that it might be able toprovide effectually against them.
Special agents were set to watch every suspect, to learn his manner oflife, how he spent his money, whether he could be trapped on theoutside. When the Government needed the confession of a given man hewould be called upon and talked to in some such manner as this:
"You, as checker, worked with Weigher Smith on a given cargo. Theweights shown by the scales Smith divided by two and you passed them.That night a messenger was sent to Costello with a statement of theshort weight he had passed. Costello paid half the duty on this shortweight. You and the weigher split on the basis of forty, sixty.
"We know of a score of offenses equally glaring on your part. TheGovernment needs you as a witness. Under the circumstances do you notthink it would be advisable for you to go with me to the districtattorney and make a complete sta
tement of all you know about customsfrauds?"
The man that the Government wanted usually came through with all heknew. So were the cases made absolute and so were all the methods ofgraft revealed. Eleven weighers and checkers were convicted and sent tothe penitentiary. Many hundreds of thousands of dollars in duties thathad been avoided were assessed against and paid by importers. TheGovernment was lenient with most of these because of its chagrin overthe part played by its representatives and because the initiative in theoffending had usually been taken by Government agents.
Altogether the cleaning up of the customs scandals in the port of NewYork was a most complicated task. The work of Special Agent Gard is buta fragment of it, but was vastly important and decidedly typical of theproblem in hand and its solution.