6
BOOZE AND BRIBES
Lawrence Fleishman had gone to sea at the age of sixteen, when most youths his age hadn’t yet put on long pants. He had enlisted in the Navy and served in convoy duty on the Atlantic in the final months of World War I. When the armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany, he had decided to remain in the Navy and he had achieved the rating of Chief Petty Officer. Still, he had no desire to spend the rest of his life at sea. When the opportunity had come, he had applied for a job with the Customs Service. He had been accepted after passing the Civil Service examinations.
Sodus Point had seemed a quiet enough haven. It was a resort center and coal shipping port on Lake Ontario, only a few miles removed from Rochester. The people were friendly and the work was pleasant. He had expected to remain for some time undisturbed, getting accustomed to the idea that his roving days were over.
Then an official-looking letter had arrived—marked “Confidential”—and within a few hours Fleishman was enroute to New York City under orders to tell no one of his destination. He was to report to Customs Agent Gregory O’Keefe in Room 501 at the Prince George Hotel.
Fleishman checked into his room at the hotel and then called O’Keefe. “Come to my room as soon as you can,” O’Keefe said. “We’re waiting for you.”
When Fleishman went to the room, he was introduced by O’Keefe to a deputy collector of customs and to another young employee named Frank Gallagher.
“We called you two down here,” O’Keefe said, “because you are new in the Service and no one around here knows you—not even the Customs people.”
O’Keefe explained that the Customs Service was under fire in Congress. Rep. Fiorello La Guardia had charged that the Port of New York was so “wide open” that a circus could be smuggled past Customs officers and New York City port authorities. He claimed that bribery and corruption were rampant in the administration of the debonair Mayor “Jimmy” Walker, and that illicit whiskey was pouring into the city. He demanded that something be done about a scandalous situation.
La Guardia’s charges had stirred Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon to order an immediate inquiry. Customs officials had denied that conditions were as bad as La Guardia said they were. Nevertheless O’Keefe was directed by his superiors to undertake an investigation.
Fleishman got the impression in this meeting that the Customs people honestly believed that an investigation would clear the Service’s skirts and prove La Guardia to be wrong. Many apparently felt that the accusations were based more on political inspiration than on facts.