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Seventeen Years in the Underworld
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In: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery·Biographies·American Literature
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Early Life
I was born thirty-three years ago in one of the small cities of an Eastern State. The family from which I came was well thought of, and what it lacked in the possession of money it made up in respectability. My life up to the fifteenth year was that of the usual boy. I believe I was a little more studious than the average youngster, spending much time and finding not a little pleasure in fitting myself for a future career. I stood well in school, being at that time one year from high school.
My mother died when I was about six years of age, leaving the care of nine children to my eldest sister. My father, a wage-earner, did not remarry. The home atmosphere was all that it could be, no bickering or quarrels ever marring the quiet of the house.
My father for as long as I can remember had been nearsighted. Whether it was hereditary or not, I too soon developed that condition of the eyes. I have always been supersensitive about that defect in my vision, and at the time did all that I could to prevent the fact becoming known at home. This defect of vision I shall dwell on at more length hereafter, as I believe it to have been one of the contributory causes of my entering the underworld.
The neighborhood in which I lived up to about my fifteenth year was just that kind one would expect to find around the home of the prosperous workingman. About this time in my life, however, an undesirable class of people began coming in, and the older neighbors began seeking new homes. My family followed the exodus and moved into one of the established suburbs of the city. I shall call the place Rosedale. Rosedale was like unto a strange town to me, and I found it lonesome. I was a youngster then, craving companionship. I had left all of my boyhood friends five miles away in the city below. I knew no one, and I needed the fellowship of a youngster of my own age. Whatever sports I entered into I entered as a stranger. I went to school and missed sadly the presence of my mates of the city. I was diffident to an extreme, and to make matters worse my father decided at this time that I should wear eyeglasses. That was before the time when glasses became popular, you must remember. I hated the thought of putting them on. I feared the derision of the boys with whom I must associate. I felt them a drawback in my search for companionship.
How well I remember the day I first put them on! I went to school, and the jibes of the boys and the half-concealed smiles of the girls made life miserable for me. The poison of melancholy crept into my heart. I would not have any of their proffered friendships, and the rancor in my heart kept me alien from their fellowships. I drew myself, as it were, into a shell. I made a pal out of solitude and out of silence. I suckled the poison of discontent. Can you imagine the life of a boy like that? The life of a lad is incomplete when it lacks the joys and pleasures found in companionship with other boys. These are a necessary part of his life, essential to his well-being and vitally important in the formation of a good character.
About four squares distant from my house there stood a car barn. Opposite this car barn was a pool room, where, for two and a half cents a cue, one could knock around the balls to his heart’s content. To this pool room my steps gravitated. I remember the first time I entered. It was an evening of the middle winter; the cold was bitter and a cold sleet driving down from the northwest made life miserable on the outside. I hesitated a while before entering, then, summoning up my courage, I went in. My! but it felt good. A hot stove showed red in the background, the odor of tobacco smoke struck strong upon my nostrils, but, above all, the good-natured chaff and jokes of those at play. This I thought was fellowship of the highest order. No one gave me more than a passing glance as I entered, except the proprietor, who was all smiles. He wished me a pleasant evening, mentioned something about the weather and went on about his work. I soon was made to feel at home, and some minutes later found myself busily engaged at my first game of pool. That pool room soon became the Mecca of all of my goings out. Initiations into the mysteries of crap, poker, and other games of a strictly gambling character soon followed. Before long I had acquired a passion for gambling that knew no limit. A year passed in this environment gave me pals a plenty. These friendships, irretrievably given, led into the complex shadows of the underworld.
Beginning a Career
I do not remember my very first act denoting criminal tendencies. The act which first brought me into the clutches of the law must have been the culmination of a passion nurtured by similar acts, but on a much smaller scale. A weakening of the will power, perhaps, by the pool-room environment of twelve months or so, was back of it all. Preceding the act which brought about my arrest I know I committed many other acts of petty thievery. Like yesterday that arrest comes back to me. Imagine a department store at the holiday season; throngs of shoppers crowded here and there; sales-people busy with fussy customers; floor-walkers watching for crooks. There by the jewelry counter two boys in their teens stand watching and waiting, a small hand reaches out to a case of rings, nervous fingers lift a “sparkle” from its velvet bed, two boys turn from the counter and follow the crowd into the street outside.
Many an anxious hour followed the commission of that first big act. A thousand times I wished that ring back in the store. I saw a detective in every face, a prison in every dream. Back to the pool room we went with our prize. It was soon disposed of. At the price for which we sold it we could have sold a million.
One night, about a week after this event in my life, I was called to the door of my house. I found a stranger who asked if I were a certain party. I answered in the affirmative. Straightway he proceeded to tell me that I was under arrest. Of course this was what I had all along been expecting, and so it wasn’t very surprising. It was the culmination of my fears, and I was sort of dead to any emotion. This detective was good to me. He was a great big fellow with a pretty good heart.
Next morning at the station house the firm was inclined to treat me leniently. The ring had been recovered, and on the promise of my father to look after me, and on my own promise to behave in the future, the judge dismissed the case.
I soon found the old environment calling me in tones which I could not resist. I slipped back again to the old pals and companionships. The ice was broken. I found each succeeding act against the law much easier of commission, until the habit became formed. Crime to the professional thief is nothing more or less than habit. That is why the reforming of such is so difficult. I lost all sight of the morals. The right or wrong of an act never enters into the mind of a criminal. His senses in this respect have become atrophied. Each act is a business proposition, considered from a business standpoint, and measured only by dollars and cents, and the opportunity for a clean “getaway.”
I did not confine myself to shoplifting. I soon graduated from this class into something bigger. I remembered the teachings of school days, the copybooks wherein were facsimiles of checks, promissory notes, etc. I soon put this learning into criminal practice.
Suggestion, while perhaps not a direct contributory cause of crime, is nevertheless so intricately interwoven with the big causative agencies that it is mighty difficult to say what part it does play in the formation of the criminal. That it plays a big part there is no gainsaying. A mind lacking will power is like a sheep--ever willing to follow a leader. If that mind possesses criminal tendencies, a method of crime is easily suggested by simply reading of other crimes. I know not whether it is pertinent to the query or not, but one of the big facts about the men in the underworld is that nearly all are inveterate readers of the daily press.
Whatever part suggestion may have played in the lives of other men in the underworld, it was a potent factor in one of the crimes of my early career. The proprietor of the pool room which we made our rendezvous had a relative who suddenly died. Wishing to show his affection for the departed, he sent me to purchase a floral piece. Being short of change, he wrote a check for ten dollars and bade me give it in exchange for the wreath. From this incident in the life of legitimate business was suggested an illegitimate use of the same idea. Why could I not do the same thing? I reasoned. The more I thought of it, the more certain I became of its feasibility. I tried it out and it succeeded beyond all expectations. This success hastened me on to the inevitable day of disaster. All crooks are possessed of a little more than their due share of vanity; my success in the new line puffed up my pride considerably. I was only a kid, I reasoned, doing a man’s work in the underworld. Of course there was no big money involved, but the money there was looked awfully big to me.
Persisting in Misdeeds
Every lane, the philosopher will tell you, has an ending. Mine stopped abruptly. A check of mine was returned to the one who supposed me a Carnegie. Having a good description of me, he lost no time in notifying the police. Some ten weeks later, I walked into the arms of a waiting policeman. I knew him well as an old friend of the family, and besought him for their sakes to let me go. He couldn’t see it that way. Of course he was sorry for me, and all that, but he had a duty to perform. I put on as bold a front as I could as he led me to the nearest patrol box. My impressions of that ride in the wagon are indistinct in my memory. I do remember, however, the sensation of weight that seemed to overwhelm me as I entered for the second time the station house. I was held for trial and committed to jail until tried.
It was early summer and the courts had adjourned to meet again three months hence. That time I must spend in jail, unless it were my pleasure to plead guilty or unless I could arrange for bail. The latter was out of the question; bail could not be had. Friends of the family were unwilling to take the chance. Upon entering jail my mind was made up to take my punishment at once and have it over with, but in jail I met men older and abler in crime than I was, whose advice to me was to demand a jury and take a chance. They reasoned with me that I had everything to gain and nothing to lose by the experiment. I, of course, took their advice.
A trial by jury gives a pretty good chance to the crook. It takes mighty strong evidence, and it has to be very conclusive to send a man away for a term of years, and the crook knows it. The worst that he’s got is an even break, no matter what the evidence. If there’s a real discrepancy in the testimony of the witnesses, a minor mistake in the identification, it is a ten to one chance in his favor. The crook, above all, knows men, knows how difficult it is to get twelve men to agree on anything under the sun, and, other things being equal, is more than willing to stack his liberty on the chance. In all my experience in the underworld I know of no man wrongfully convicted. On the other hand, I know of at least a hundred cases where the guilty have been acquitted.
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