Cutting The Wire: Gaming Prohibition And The Internet

2. The Anxious Decade

2฀ The฀Anxious฀Decade Americans฀learn฀to฀fear฀organized฀crime฀but฀refuse฀to฀admit฀that,฀as฀gambling฀ citizens,฀they฀are฀part฀of฀the฀problem. Gambling฀has฀been฀with฀us฀for฀centuries,฀and฀presumably฀there฀will฀always฀be฀people฀who฀are฀ willing฀to฀lose฀their฀money฀through฀games฀of฀chance. ฀฀฀—฀฀฀Captain฀George฀H.฀Bullen฀Jr.,฀FBI฀Law฀Enforcement฀Bulletin professional gamblers taking bets from the public are, out of necessity, exposed to prosecution for running gambling businesses. Yet for muchofAmericanhistory,ostensiblyillegalgamingoperationsthrived,bene- ficiaries of the mechanics of direct democracy. Politicians achieve and hold power by satisfying more interests than they offend. In the big-city machines of yesteryear, this meant accepting cash from, and doling patronage out to, an assortment of ward heelers and neighborhood big men, many of whom had more than a passing interest in gaming and other illegal enterprises. Usually, this proved problematic only to stubborn bluenoses who sought to enforce unpopular laws against moral offenses, be it schoolgirls selling flowers on Sunday or guys laying action on the home favorite to beat the spread. Local antigambling efforts proved to be cyclical at best. When, at times, the corruption inherent in a society with an illegal popular pastime became too noisome for the mass of voters, a “reform ticket” swept control of the city, county, or state in question. After a few raids and a period of quiet, illicit gaming resumed as before. For decades, this sine wave of wide open/reform/wide open status undulated fairly predictably. Far fewer guardians of the public trust retired in disgrace than retired rich from this arrangement, and “boss gamblers” made fortunes. Most Americans, if asked, saw nothing particularly sinister in it. But beginning in the late 1940s and intensifying into the early 1960s, American perceptions of crime — particularly gaming crimes — shifted profoundly. Once viewed in strictly local terms, gambling became linked to criminal conspiracies that were national, if not international, in scope. Americans woke up from fitful dreams of jackpots and winning long shots to the disturbing realization that all the money spent on illegal gambling actually went somewhere . The ultimate profiteers of illegal gambling, known variously as boss 45 02.indd 1 6/6/05 11:39:56 PM 46฀ cut ting฀the฀wire gamblers, racketeers, and hoodlums, took a place beside foreign and domestic spies and saboteurs in American nightmares. A฀National฀Dilemma Crime in America is widely considered to be a local problem. When citizens are outraged at increased lawlessness, they usually search for community solutions before turning to the federal government. The crisis over the boss gamblers, building during the late 1940s, crystallized into a truly national concern in early 1950, but not before several local groups investigated and denounced gamblers, organized crime, passive police, and acquiescent politicians . After citizens were frustrated in their attempts to root out the syndicates through local solutions, they appealed to the federal government for help. After World War II, many Americans braced for a crime wave, and had one not appeared they would have been disappointed. President Harry S. Truman himself, using rather broad analogies, claimed that after every armed conflict the United States had faced an upswing of crime. In an idiosyncratic analysis, he expounded that after the Revolutionary War “we had almost exactly the same problem with which we are faced now”; consequently Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Most historians, of course, believe that the Federalists in fact passed the acts to stifle Jeffersonian opposition rather than to stem the tide of interstate bookmaking syndicates. Lumping together a post– Civil War increase in “banditry” and an increase in crime after World War I (which had nothing, apparently, to do with the Volstead Act and national Prohibition ), Truman concluded that the problem of crime facing America in the postwar years was a historical certainty.1 Crime does not follow automatic patterns, swinging with a pendulum’s regularity, so if Truman was not mistaken, he was certainly misinformed when he made his analogy to postwar criminal sprees. In fact, looking at the most violent (and easily discovered) of crimes, homicide, historian Eric Monkkonen found no link between postwar demobilization and a rise in murders. After World War II there was a minor increase in murder rates, then a decline, but nothing like the explosion the nation would see in the 1960s.2 Despite popular expectations, there was no postwar crime wave. If crime was not definitely on the rise in those years, gaming certainly...