Early the next morning at the hotel we secreted two responsible persons in a closet in my room, then awaited the arrival of our grafter. He came at the appointed hour and we again discussed the matter of our protection and paid him $50.00. Immediately afterwards our witnesses stepped out of the closet, and finding himself caught with four witnesses against him, the man readily agreed to give us a written and signed confession. He was told he would have to resign his position forthwith or be prosecuted. He chose the former, which ended the case.
The dictagraph has played an important part in the detection and conviction of grafters. When it is suspected that state, county or city officials are grafting, in order to detect them, we will take for example one or more city officials whose duty it is to let for their city, contracts for paving. When a municipality gets ready to pave three or four streets, or to let contracts for machinery, buildings or other public improvements, specifications are drawn and the same advertised. Perhaps twenty contractors will submit bids and one can imagine the rivalry that may exist among the contractors, especially since the municipality usually reserves the right to reject any or all bids and are not bound to let any given contract to the lowest bidder. Then naturally and very often the question arises as to who shall be favored. My experience in many cases has been that when the city officials are open to taking graft, a contract will go to the contractor who will pay the most for being favored.
Three city officials once were trapped when a detective spent six months in their city posing as a contractor, and finally when his company was favored with a street paving contract upon the payment of $500.00 cash, he arranged to talk over the transaction and later paid over the money in a room in a hotel in which a dictagraph was secretly installed, and which made it possible to substantiate the transaction from start to finish.
Grafting is prevalent in many lines of business, especially where one man is entrusted with the letting of contracts, or with the purchase of supplies for a city, corporation, factory or individual. The following will illustrate just how prevalent petty grafting has become and which came to my notice through a case I had occasion to investigate for a certain well-to-do gentleman. This man owned two automobiles and entrusted to his colored chauffeur the purchase of gasoline and supplies for the machines. From various dealers this chauffeur obtained a “rake-off” on every gallon of gasoline used, and on the purchase of new tires, etc. The more gasoline he used the more money this chauffeur would make, and the same with tires and other supplies. During the investigation this chauffeur’s purchases of gasoline from the dealer were compared with the mileage of the automobiles, and when it was estimated that the owner was paying for two or three gallons of gasoline per week for a long time that could not possibly have been used. It was then believed that the chauffeur was selling the surplus gasoline, but this could not be proven. Finally, when taken to task and shown the amount of his purchases, he confessed to having poured the gasoline into the sewer of the garage.
I was once called upon to look into a case where grafting was suspected in a small town, and where the president of the town council, who was a prominent physician, was under suspicion. I arrived in town two days before a certain measure was to be acted upon in council, the measure being in relation to a heating contract. I called upon the physician at his office and told him in plain words that I represented one of the competing firms and that I had been authorized to offer him two hundred dollars for his vote and influence in favor of my company. He accepted from me the two hundred dollars cash consisting of marked five dollar bills, and endeavored to convince me that he was not a grafter by saying that he had intended favoring my company anyway and was not accepting the money for changing his decision on the measure in council.
After leaving him I went promptly to the persons who had retained me, when it was quickly arranged to have a certain person who owed the physician a small bill go there to pay it with a twenty dollar bill. This party returned with three of the marked five dollar bills, which the physician unsuspectingly made the change with. In addition, I had had the physician prescribe for me for a pretended ailment, and by which I was enabled to substantiate my call upon him, in spite of the fact that I went to him alone. It was only desired to have this man resign from council, which, it may be imagined, he was glad to do when confronted with the evidence of having accepted a bribe. This entire case was closed successfully in less than four hours after active work was started.