A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, about the custom that you had. Did the detectives provide you with the custom; did they give you custom?
A. No, they did not; they came in sometimes themselves and like this, only they never paid when they came in; only they allowed me to keep open any hour and all the time.—Vol. v., p. 4,592.
This claim to be supplied with drink whenever they felt they wanted a glass appears to have been very generally recognised by the liquor dealers of New York. Sometimes the police would pretend that they would pay, but, as a matter of fact, the principle of free drinks seems to have been very widely recognised.
In the regular saloons there was comparatively little necessity for invoking the assistance of the benevolent Pantata. He had a much wider field in dealing with the gaming houses, which flourished in every precinct in New York. According to the law, no gaming house was allowed to run. Yet, by permission of the police, there were about a thousand of them running all the time the Lexow Committee was sitting. I had better quote here the extract from the Lexow Committee’s Report:—
The evidence is conclusive that with reference to this class of vice the police occupied substantially the same position as they did with respect to disorderly houses.
It was proven even that while the Committee was actually in session more than six hundred policy shops were in active operation in the city, running openly, and from day to day policy slips were secured in some shops in different portions of the city by detectives in the employ of your Committee.
Qualified witnesses swore that the general average of open shops was about one thousand. The testimony disclosed the remarkable fact that not only were these violators of the law protected by the police in consideration of a fixed sum of 15 dollars a month per shop, but that the area of operation of each “king” was so clearly understood and carefully guarded, that any intruder would be certified to the police, and would either be compelled to refrain from competition with a licensed “policy king,” or else would be arrested and condign punishment would be visited upon him.
It seems clear from the evidence that this division of territory was largely for the benefit of the police, insuring a more rapid and easier collection of the tribute to be paid the “policy king” to whom a particular district had been assigned, paying in bulk at the rate of fifteen dollars per shop for all the shops running in such district or districts.
Pool-rooms flourished all over the city in the same way. Large sums were extorted from their proprietors by the police, and they were permitted to remain unmolested, openly and publicly running, until a private citizen, Richard Croker, after a conference with a police commissioner, enforced their cessation practically in a single day. This is one of the most remarkable circumstances testified to before your Committee. And yet nothing was done or attempted to be done until the private citizen aforesaid commanded that they be closed, and they were closed, and closed without criminal prosecution.