The Big Con (32 page)

When all fixing is in vain and the con man receives a prison sentence, he fails to “beat the rap.” Those who do time on confidence charges are prosecuted very hard; most of them are convicted as a result of interference by the Federal Government; federal officers, agents, juries and judges are generally looked upon by con men as almost incorruptible, though most con men will wave a large bill under their noses on the chance that they may like the looks of money; conviction in federal court means a sentence in federal prison where local pressures are not so strongly felt and where the con man is almost sure to serve more of his time than he would in a state institution. About the best a con man can expect in a federal court is a relatively light sentence. While quite a number of confidence men have been indicted and convicted since the advent of the big-con games, the small number of convictions balanced against the very large number of touches during the last thirty-five or forty years indicates a very low correlation between confidence crimes and conviction therefor. This low correlation gives con men a feeling of security because they know that the odds are overwhelmingly against their doing time for any given offense.

Some professionals go through an entire life of grifting without doing time. But these are the exception rather than the rule. Many of them do several “bits” and most of them do at least one stretch, almost always brought on through succumbing to the temptation of using the mails and consequently inviting “that bad Graham man” into the case. The Brass Kid and Eddie Spears were, so far as I
can determine, the first big-timers to be “lagged” for using the mails. Jack Porter was involved in the case also, but escaped temporarily. The three of them trimmed a mark from Indiana at the store in Hot Springs. The Brass Kid and Eddie Spears were picked up and held temporarily in the Cook County jail in Chicago; from there they were spirited out of Chicago into Indiana, and from there sent to Hot Springs, and after a hard fight, were convicted. The case was carried to the United States Supreme Court, but to no avail. Later Porter was captured and convicted. This case made quite an impression on confidence men, who now realized that the Federal Government was a force which, free from local political entanglements and untouched by the blandishments of the fixer, could and would exact a penalty whenever con men violated the federal law. However, many continued to use the mails—and still do—depending on expert “cooling out” by the insideman and the strength of the local fix to keep the case from getting into court.

If the confidence men thought that the Hot Springs case was only an isolated example of federal power, that, like the reform waves which periodically occur in all cities, federal ardor would cool and the public would forget, they were mistaken. The public rapidly forgot, as it always does, but federal ardor only burned the brighter. At Council Bluffs, Iowa (as well as at Webb City near by), Ben Marks, a powerful fixer himself, and owner, at one time or another, of many, many big stores, had an ideal set-up for confidence men. Here were several stores, including fight stores, foot-race stores and wrestle stores. Old Ben had some of the best young grifters in the country working for him and, the fix being what it was, everyone was happy—except the marks who were being trimmed. The Honey Grove Kid, Crazy Horse Thompson, George Ryan and other first-raters were roping. An ex-champion of the prize ring and his brother were being
used in the fight store. The government stepped in, the fix “soured,” and the government indicted all the ropers, who were listed in a fatal little black book. Five or six of the lot were “lagged,” and again the Federal Government had scored.

However, Hot Springs and Council Bluffs were small places; the big political machines in the larger cities did a good job of protecting the con men along with most other forms of organized professional crime; as long as the government could be kept out the con men prospered. But shortly after the Council Bluffs trouble, the fix curdled in Chicago, where Barney the Patch, in front of the Sherman Hotel, engaged in a shooting fray with detectives who appeared to be trying to protect someone higher up, the final score being one slug in Barney and one copper down.

There was no doubt that the government meant business. From this time on, con men concentrated about certain focal points where the local fix was strong as it could be made, perfected further their “cooling-out” systems, and hoped for the best. Probably the greatest single round-up of con men occurred not under the Federal Government, but under the direction of Colonel Philip Van Cise, District Attorney in Denver, who, financed by a citizens’ fund and backed by State Troopers who were not involved in the local fix, engineered a series of raids in March, 1923. Although Federal Inspector Graham assisted in collecting evidence, the government did not prosecute. Moving with great secrecy so as to avoid tipping off his plans, Van Cise’s Rangers closed in on the big stores controlled and operated by Lou Blonger and corraled more than thirty big-con men, some of them first-raters, including Blonger’s ace insideman, A. W. (Kid) Duff. The raids were so carefully organized that not a single local police officer nor any member of the city or county machines knew about them; the Rangers, as a preventive
against escape of the con men, kept them out of the city and county jails, and herded them into a church basement where they were held under armed guard. Because of the strength of the local fix, special prosecutors, S. Harrison White and H. C. Riddle, were brought in to try the cases. This time there were no delays and continuances, no bribing of the judge or buying of the jury. By the end of March more than a score of them had been convicted and sentenced.

While in the meantime many con men have been sent to prison, some of the outstanding big-timers who have served sentences since the inception of the big-con games would include the Yellow Kid, John Henry Strosnider, Charley Gondorff, Lee Reil and several others. The Yellow Kid has done five or six stretches, all very short, and is now in the midst of the latest one. He seems to have captured the public imagination and likes the publicity which attends all his exploits. “When the Yellow falls,” said one of his best ropers, “there is always a lot of notoriety connected with the case. He seems to play for it. Well, he surely gets it—in the neck.” Charley Gondorff was sent up from New York City, in spite of the fix. Joe Furey and Goldie Gerber, partners with others in the Norfleet case, went up in the 1920’s, Furey for twenty years (an unusually stiff sentence which he did not live to finish) and Goldie for ten (which he reduced greatly by good behavior). The fix, which had always heretofore been “airtight” for Lee Reil, went sour and Lee, with his partner—one of the few con men reputed to be stool pigeons—were sent up from Los Angeles. Mickey Shea and his mob from Toledo, Ohio, were sent up for five years (in spite of all the powerful Nibs Callahan could do to fix for them) for beating a Michigan farmer on the pay-off; there were two exceptions in this mob; Jack Arthur was, in some mysterious manner, released from prison and packed the racket in, while Eddie Mines, wanted with the same mob,
fled to Canada, fought extradition, and has remained a lamster ever since. John Henry Strosnider beat a banker from the stockyards district in Chicago, fought the case bitterly to the Supreme Court of the United States, but lost and drew a one-to-ten year bit, of which he served one year. Prominent men who were imprisoned for taking off large touches on the short-con would include Eddie Schultz and Joe Simmons from Coney Island, both first-rate big-con ropers, who, in spite of all the fixing they could do, got ten years for a smack-touch. A curdled fix in Philadelphia brought Fred Manning and Curley Carter each five years on the same sort of short-con touch. The High Ass Kid, a first-rater who escaped the penalty for many a big-con touch, received a short term in New York for a short-con touch in the summer of 1939. Many other big-timers have served time—some of them under false names. Most recent of the really big-time fixers to be sentenced are perhaps William Graham and James McKay, Reno, Nevada, vice lords who have for years protected both rag and pay-off stores where some of the largest single scores in recent years have been taken off. In February, 1938, they were convicted in federal court, but their nine-year sentences were delayed until August, 1939, in order to give them time to raise the $30,000 in fines and court costs which the government assessed.

The more prominent a con man is in his profession, the harder he “falls” when he does get into trouble. Obscure professionals, even if they are convicted, get off rather easy. But the big-timers, with scores of big touches back of them, a horde of beefing marks at their heels, and a court disposed to take an unsympathetic view of their long and habitual record, are likely to find little mercy at the hands of a federal judge. Also, because of their known prosperity, they find fixing expensive and the shakedown constantly stares them in the face. Then, too, some big-con men seem to be just naturally unlucky, like Little Jeff
Sharum, a partner of the Postal Kid, who has done a dozen stretches in prison and recently died behind bars; his bad luck with the law was paralleled—and equaled—by his sad fortune with women. Other con men like Post and Allen seem to be watched over by a lucky star, for they grift away for a lifetime without a single fall to discourage them. But all con men know that, ninety per cent of the time, the panacea for all legal troubles is the fix.

Once a con man is sent to prison, the odds are heavily against his serving much time. If he has exhausted his personal funds during the trials, his friends—and his enemies—in the underworld will raise any sum necessary to alleviate his incarceration. This means that while he is in prison, pressure will be put directly upon prison officials by politicians and fixers so that he will receive favored treatment, get easy work, have luxuries which are ordinarily denied prisoners, and even, as a trusty, be permitted outside prison walls where he can have access to liquor, women and friends on certain occasions. Con men are notably adaptable to any sort of existence and adjust to prison life much better than other types of professional criminals; but, above all, they miss the excitement, the tension, the high pressure under which they live; they love their freedom, and they are not long in getting it. They seldom do more than two or three years at most for any big-con touch.

Back in 1919 a group of con men, five in all, swindled a Texas rancher, Frank Norfleet, on the rag. First they played him for $20,000, then almost immediately gave him a second play for $25,000. He was a prime example of a mark who could not be cooled out. He determined to catch and convict all the swindlers. Hampered by the fix in almost every city where con men operated, he devoted two years of his life and more than $80,000 to catching these men and returning them for prosecution. He was, on several occasions, offered all his money back, but he
seems to have developed a complex; nothing would satisfy him but conviction and imprisonment. Con men seriously discussed having him taken for a ride. This case was prosecuted with great vigor. Finally in 1922–1923, all the men had been caught and one had committed suicide. They fought the case bitterly, but all went to prison. The case received so much publicity that it might appear that politicians would hesitate to intervene in an effort to reduce their sentences. Yet, four years later, Norfleet was disillusioned and somewhat discouraged to find that not a single one of the confidence men he had hounded with such determination remained behind bars. Such is the tale of the fix.

The short-con games are, theoretically, any confidence games in which the mark is trimmed for only the amount he has with him at the time—in short, those games which do not employ the send. However, big-con operators do sometimes put the send into short-con games with excellent results, so, perhaps it is more accurate to say that, from the big-con man’s point of view, short-con games are any con games except the rag, the wire and the payoff. Before the advent of the big-con games (including the wrestle, foot-race, and fight send stores, and other obsolete forms which were, in principle, big con) everything was short con. Generally speaking, we might say that the short con went out with the horse and buggy; of the scores of short-con games
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which were widely and expertly
played in 1900, only a few remain in the hands of competent professionals. Here we are concerned only with those short-con games which are regularly used by big-con men to tide them over between touches on the big con. Meanwhile the older con games have passed into the hands of short-con men, who still use them with surprising success. Just as this is being written (November 21, 1939) the newspapers carry headlines telling of several Texas bankers who were swindled for $300,000 on the old gold brick game, a chestnut, if ever there was one. The games grow old but the marks are always new.

The touch from the big-con games is usually gone with the wind; it is spent or squandered or lost at gambling in a remarkably short time. To the ordinary citizen, $50,000 seems like a great deal of money; if he had it, he would invest it and live from the income for a lifetime; he would, probably, adjust his wants to his income. But not so the con man. Much of his $50,000 is spent before he makes it, for he owes many debts. His living is geared to high speed. He has no sense of the value of money and seems to see how rapidly he can empty his pockets. Within a few weeks, or, sometimes, within a few days after he has taken off a touch, he is broke and living on borrowed money.

One doesn’t pick up a mark for the big con every day, but suckers for the short con are much easier to find.
And, since most good big-con men cut their teeth on the short-con games, it is only natural for them to fall back on some short-con game when they need money. As they travel over the world, their expenses mount up and they feel the necessity for some other source of income. “The only way to keep the nut down,” says one con man, “is to make a rule with yourself to get a hype touch every day for a sawbuck by laying the double-saw.” The hype is a form of short-change racket with a clever line of con talk which accompanies it. It is always good for a ten-dollar bill.