Poultry Racket

Little does the lowly broiler, carelessly peeping in his Long Island or New Jersey chicken run, know what crimes may be committed over his carcass. He and 50,000,000 other chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys from all over the U. S. are shipped to New York City every year. Long before he fulfills his destiny in the pot or skillet, an amazing crime ring has its bloody eye on him.

To begin with, the broiler's raiser is often told to what wholesaler he may sell. The truck and the very crate in which the broiler rides to town may be under criminal control. The food the broiler gets is sold by racketeers, and in the middle of the day or night he may be surprised to find his crate broken open, himself dumped out to squawk and flap in brief freedom until a predatory child or housewife captures him from his rightful owners.

Ninety per cent of all New York poultry is consumed by Jews, who eat two pounds of kosher fowl per capita per week (see p. 24) and pay an estimated $16,000,000 a year to racketeers thereby. A swarthy man will say a blessing over the broiler when his end finally comes, and pass a sharp knife across his knotted gullet. This man will be a shochet (ritual slaughterer), and he will probably belong to an association ruled by gangsters. Even dressed and plucked, the broiler is not yet free of violence, for if his owner does not string along with the corrupt kosher poultry "trust"' (two who did not were shot down last year in Brooklyn and Queens), the broiler may have poison or kerosene sprinkled over him by a band of "the Boys," ex-convicts and plug-uglies who police the trust. Even the butcher on the quiet street who finally sells the broiler, should he escape all his other criminal hazards, probably has his district and his customers and his wholesaler assigned him by poultry racketeers. In The Bronx, one night early last month, police caught seven hoodlums vigorously banging sawed-off billiard cues against plate glass and fixtures, hurriedly releasing crates of fowl at the market of S. S. & B. Poultry Corp. The hoodlums were arrested, arraigned for trial last week. Soon the S. S. & B.'s proprietors -- Hyman Blank, Samuel Shipper and Samuel Weiner, whose business had already been chased out of the Manhattan poultry market by gangster terrorism -- went to District Attorney Samuel Foley of Bronx County, told him they preferred to have the case dropped. Clearly they had been intimidated by the racketeers. "What do they think I am going to do, fold up the county and hand it over to them?" angrily demanded Attorney Foley. "If I get an even break, I am going to put everybody involved in jail!" Seeking a case to peg a general assault on the whole corrupt kosher poultry racket, Attorney Foley clapped his fright- ened witnesses in prison, set their bail at $25,000 apiece. When two days later, an unknown benefactor turned up with their bond, the partners became thoroughly alarmed. "We don't want to go out," they anxiously told Mr. Foley. "None of our people bailed us out. We want to stay in." Mr. Foley found that the same man who had arranged bail for one of the defendants, "Big John" Petruzelli, had arranged the witnesses' bond. Wishing not only to keep his witnesses secure but also alive, the prosecutor had their collective bail raised to $750,000. An atmosphere of mystery surrounded the next attempt to free the witnesses against their wishes. One midnight Weiner's brother Moe obtained a writ of habeas corpus for all three on the grounds that Weiner's "wife was sick and business going to pieces." "You mind your own business," cried terrified Sam Weiner who, with Attorney Foley, had become convinced that his brother was being used as a lethal tool of gangland. Mastermind behind these midnight assaults and court scenes, believed the police, was one Joe Weiner (no kin to Poulterer Sam). Attorney Foley had him indicted with his seven henchmen. It proved easier to indict him than to find him. Police began combing the city, delaying the trial meanwhile. Joseph Weiner was one of 81 defendants who sat on the grandstand required when a Federal judge held a wholesale trial of the wholesale poultry trade three and a half years ago (TIME. Oct. 21; Dec. 2, 1929). Last week the injunction which had been clapped on the activities of the 81 defendants was eased by the U. S. Supreme Court. Racketeer Weiner is said to realize $5,000 a week from the distribution of New York City's fowl through his tight vertical industrial combination. Last year he settled his income tax difficulties for 1929-30-31 by paying on an admitted $80,000, a sum which Government agents began investigating last week as incomplete. While Internal Revenue agents were checking up on Racketeer Weiner's income last week, Agent Hugh McQuillan, who helped put Alphonse ("Scarface Al") Capone in jail, prepared tax evasion indictments, the Government's tried & true weapon against gangsters, against 43 Manhattan underworldlings. Among the 43: Johnny Torrio, who abdicated Chicago to Capone; Ciro Terranova, "The Artichoke King"; Salvy Spitale and Irving Bitz, who hunted the underworld for Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. Already indicted are Fugitive Irving ("Waxie Gordon") Wexler (backer of Strike Me Pink} and Fugitive Arthur ("Dutch Schultz") Flegenheimer, of the beerage.

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