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years ago when they teamed up as free-lance sluggers who sold their services in industrial disputes to the highest bidder. They began to emerge from obscurity as ranking members of the "Little Augie" mob in the late nineteen-twenties. Then "Little Augie" was left to die under a rain of bullets on a New York street and Lepke and Gurrah, with their partner Curley, had a clear field. Next Curley disappeared and lies, it is said, in concrete at the bottom of the East River.
Lepke and Gurrah are no longer police characters. Oh, no, they wouldn't think of carrying a gun or getting into any trouble. They graduated from all that years ago. They wouldn't even think of arguing with anybody. Of course, if someone caused them trouble, they might drop a hint to one of their subordinates that they didn't like that person, but they wouldn't think of being direct participants in his murder. That would be the private venture of some one of the boys on the payroll who would never squeal, even if caught.
As their power grew, they decided back in 1931, to take over the flour trucking and baking industries.
Lepke himself began it by sending for a business man to tell him that he was going to be his partner. The business man refused. Agents of Lepke visited the business man and made threats, and again that business man refused, and courageously made a complaint against Lepke and his henchmen, charging them with attempted extortion. Lepke disappeared conveniently for a while but two
"Gurrah" Shapiro, Trucking Racket.
"Lepke" Buckhouse, Baking Racket.
others stood trial, and on their record of that case, there appears in the sworn testimony the statement made by Lepke himself. "It means to us a lot of money, maybe millions of dollars. In the flour industry, we have got the jobbers and the truckmen and the next will be the bakers and we are going to make it a big thing."
Lepke finally came back and operations went ahead. The gorillas invaded a labor union in the flour trucking field and gave orders. From then on, they said strikes were to be called when they ga,Ve the orders.
But after a year or so there was trouble. The president of the union, William Snyder, wasn't taking orders as he should. And so, one night in September 1934 there was a conference of the racket Flour Truckmen's Association. There were fourteen men seated around a table in a room in a restaurant on Avenue A. Someone walked in and murdered William Snyder in cold blood. The police arrested a man, named Morris Goldis. Goldis was dismissed in the Magistrate's court, and the racket marched forward. The members of that union never had a chance, and no employer had a chance.
Another industry was subdued. The price of flour trucking went up. Employers were forced to pay (Continued on page 75)