Technically, police officers in hot pursuit may cross state lines to make arrests, even for traffic violations. But few crimes are committed in the presence of a cop, and almost never any involving the upper echelons of crime. The satellite regions are remarkably free of Negroes, who prefer the city which they have all but taken over. That’s why the suburbs grew in size to such extent that Silver Spring, Maryland, adjacent to the District, of which outsiders seldom hear or read, is now the second largest city in the state.
The suburbs run the scale from swank sections where only those of great wealth reside to dingy squatters’ rows where moonshining, murder and mayhem are daily dillies. Most of the ritzier suburbs are on the Virginia side. Chain Bridge Way, Warrenton and Middleburg are peopled by the horsey set, where there are great estates lived in by possessors of ancient, honorable family names, as well as by the newly-made aristocrats of the New Deal, union officers, left-wing lawyers, five-percenters and State Department aides. Chevy Chase, partly in the District, but mostly in Maryland, is tony, too. So is Bethesda, Maryland.
But the great mass of suburbanites in both states are middle-class government employes who commute to and from work, play bridge, go to the movies and propagate.
As will be seen here, you can find almost anything in the way of crime or vice in Washington, but what you miss can usually be met in some of the Maryland suburbs when the heat isn’t on, especially in Prince Georges County, which, for its size, probably has more slot-machines, strip-teasers, resident hoodlums and general deviltry than any other place in the world—subject to a “clean-up” in progress at this writing.
A. Maryland
This is the Free State, where anything goes.
Chicago has Cicero, Washington has Prince Georges County.
The same cause which gives Washington the unenviable lead as the Number 1 law-breaker among cities—public apathy—is what usually makes Prince Georges County unique among county areas of the country. Washington does not have the vote, the residents of Prince Georges do have it. And they exercise it by usually voting Democratic and corrupt. Last November they kicked over the traces for the first time since 1864. But the Republican county commission won’t get far, even if it tries.
Without a dream of winning, the GOP nominated well-meaning nonentities without a policy, organization or knowledge of the local problems. Their victory was as surprising to themselves as to these reporters.