Hard Times

by Studs Terkel

  Carl Stockholm

  Today, he runs a successful chain of dry-cleaning stores in Chicago. In the Twenties and early Thirties, he was a six-day bicycle racer.

  WE HAD SEVEN tracks running on the Eastern seaboard. One rider could work twenty weeks in the summertime. A minimum of five times a week. I started in 1922 as a pro bike racer and was paid $100 a day. Later, it was from $200 up. Any good bike rider was worth that. The two-man race was the most popular. We’d go 146 hours straight.

  It was a great place for show people because we ran all night. We used to have a great many people come in with top hats—society people. Tex Rickard79 had a group of six hundred millionaires. They came in dressed for an event. We had song pluggers. They’d have a piano on the track, in the middle of the infield. They’d sing day and night. You got so you peddled automatically to the tune that was going on. I remember “Back To the Carolinas You Love.” My legs still move to it.

  We never wore helmets. We never had anything to protect us. We worked in a silk shirt and tights. If you fell, you got ripped up a little bit. It was a very tough game.

  I went out with a lot of newspaper men. You’d hit four or five speak-easies in a couple of hours. Everybody seemed to feel he had to be seen in certain places. It wasn’t unusual for a big sport to put up $1,000 for a sprint. They were all kind to the athletes.

  Dion O’Bannion80 was a great customer of mine. The bootleggers were the real big spenders. They bought the best seats. Everybody accepted them. In New York, Rickard was the big spender. He’d always come around with his cigar. He’d give the six-day race tickets to Mike Jacobs81 to scalp. If you wanted a good pair of tickets, you’d go to Mike Jacobs. All the best tickets were given to the scalpers. If you wanted a good pair, it was worth $25.

  After the stock market crash, we felt the pinch. In the middle of the Depression, the bike game went out of business. The tracks deteriorated. It cost a tremendous amount of money to replace the boards, so they were never replaced.

  I quit racing in 1932, when they couldn’t meet my fee. Frankie Harmon 82 and I rented the Chicago Stadium in the winter of ‘34, ’35. We ran two six-day races. They were still drawing pretty well, but it was dying. You could see it. We gave away tickets for the afternoon sessions to ladies. Only a tencent tax was required for each ticket. We had many well-dressed ladies, but they didn’t have the price for the tax. That was it. We always hoped this sport would come back. It never did.

  Doc Graham

  A mutual acquaintance, Kid Pharaoh, insisted that we meet. Doc Graham had obviously seen better days.

  “My introduction to Chicago was when a guy got his head blowed off right across from where I went to stay. In that neighborhood where I gravitated, there was every kind of character that was ever invented. Con men, heist men, burglars, peet men: you name it, they had it.

  “These are highly sophisticated endeavors. To be proficient at it—well, my God, you spent a lifetime. And then you might fall, through not being sophisticated enough. You may have committed a common error, leaving fingerprints… .”

  I WAS a caged panther. It was a jungle. Survival was the law of the land. I watched so many of my partners fall along the way. I decided the modus operandi was bad. Unavailing, non-productive. After spending ten Saturdays in jail, one right after another. I changed my modus operandi.

  What were you in jail for?

  Various allegations. All alleged. I been a con man, a heist man—you name it.

  How does a heist man differ from a con man?

  One is by force and the other is by guile. Very few people have encompassed both. I was very daring. When I came to the city and seen groceries on the sidewalk, I swore I’d never be hungry again. My family was extremely poor. My father was an unsuccessful gambler, and my mother was a missionary. Not much money was connected with either profession.

  A family conflict … ?

  Yes, slightly. He threw the Bible in the fire. He was right, incidentally. (Laughs.) My mother didn’t see it that way.

  I’m sixty-one, and I have never held a Social Security card. I’m not knocking it. I have been what society generally refers to as a parasite. But I don’t think I’d be a nicer fellow if I held two jobs.

  My teacher was Count Victor Lustig. He was perhaps the greatest con man the United States has ever known. Lustig’s outstanding achievement was getting put in jail and paying a Texas sheriff off with $30,000 counterfeit. And the sheriff made the penitentiary also. He got to be a believer. And he went into the counterfeit profession.

  Another teacher was Ace Campbell.83 He was the greatest card mechanic that ever arrived on the scene. Nick the Greek84 wouldn’t make him a butler. A footman. He couldn’t open the door for him. Ace played the crimp. A crimp is putting a weave in a card that you’d need a microscope to see it. I know the techniques, but having had my arm half removed, I had to switch left-handed, deal left-handed. I’m ambidexterous.

  An accident … ?

  With a colored North American. The Twenties and early Thirties was a jungle, where only the strong survived and the weak fell by the wayside. In Chicago, at the time, the unsophisticated either belonged to the Bugs Moran mob or the Capone mob. The fellas with talent didn’t bother with either one. And went around and robbed both of ’em.

  We were extremely independent. Since I’m Irish, I had a working affiliate with Bugs Moran’s outfit. In case muscle was needed beyond what I had, I called on Moran for help. On the other hand, Moran might use me to help him in one of his operations.

  The nature of one operation was: if you had a load of whiskey hijacked, we went over and reloaded it on a truck, while several surrounded the place with machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, et cetera.

  Did you find yourself in ticklish situations on occasion … ?

  Many of them. You see this fellow liquidated, that fellow disposed of. Red McLaughlin had the reputation of being the toughest guy in Chicago. But when you seen Red run out of the drainage canal, you realized Red’s modus operandi was unavailing. His associates was Clifford and Adams. They were set in Al’s doorway in his hotel in Cicero. That was unavailing. Red and his partners once stole the Checker Cab Company. They took machine guns and went up and had an election, and just went and took it over. I assisted in that operation.

  What role did the forces of law and order play?

  With a $10 bill, you wasn’t bothered. If you had a speaking acquaintance with Mayor Thompson,85 you could do no wrong. (Laughs.) Al spoke loud to him.

  There was a long period during the Depression where the police were taking scrip. Cash had a language all of its own. One night in particular, I didn’t have my pistol with me, and the lady of the evening pointed out a large score to me. (Laughs.) A squad car came by, which I was familiar with. A Cadillac, with a bell on it. I knew all the officers. I borrowed one of their pistols and took the score. Then I had to strip and be searched by the policemen, keeping honest in the end, as we divided the score. They wanted the right count. They thought I might be holding out on ’em. They even went into my shoes, even.

  Oh, many policemen in that era were thieves. Legal thieves. I accepted it as such and performed accordingly. We didn’t have no problems. It was an era where there was no bread on the table. So what was the difference whether I put the bread on the table by my endeavor or they put the bread? I performed with a hundred policemen in my time. I can’t say nothin‘ for ’em, nothin’ against ’em. I would say they were opportunists. I would say that they were merely persons that didn’t perhaps have the courage to go on and do what I did. Nevertheless, they were willing to be a part of it. A minor part, that is.

  The era of the times led into criminality, because of the old precept and concepts were destroyed against everyday reality. So when a policeman or a fireman was not being paid, how in the name of God could you expect him to enforce what he knew as the concept of law and order, when you see the beer barons changing hundred-dollar bills, and the pimp and the whorehouse guy h
ad hundred-dollar bills, and the guy digging the sewers couldn’t pay his bills? So how could you equate these things?

  A good example is Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. They were a product of the era. Dillinger—it wasn’t that he was really a tough. No, he was just a product of survival. Actually, Dillinger was a country bumpkin. He realized the odds were stacked against him and performed accordingly. I knew Dillinger. Yeah, I met him on the North Side. And Dillinger was nothing like people wrote about him. The times produced Dillinger. Pretty Boy Floyd. Baby Face Nelson.

  They were dedicated heist men and in the end were killed, to achieve their purpose. By themselves, they didn’t need an army.

  Al Capone sublet the matter. Capone quickly removed himself from the danger zone, aside from murdering Anselmi and Scalisi with a baseball bat. Bugs Moran to the end—he died for a bank heist in Ohio. They were from two different bolts of cloth. One was a dedicated thief. And one was an intriguing Mediterranean product of guile, et cetera. So you’d have to say that Moran was dedicated while Capone was an opportunist.

  How did you get along during those hard times?

  By every way known to the human brain. All my brothers were in the penitentiary. I had one brother in Jefferson City, another one in San Quentin, another one in Leavenworth, another one in Louisiana. At that time, I am a fighter. I started boxing in 1925. Fourteen years till 1939. And it’s a bloodthirsty thing.

  How’d you become a boxer?

  Gravitation. Being on the road simulated that fate, trying to grab a buck and so forth. Five different years, Ring Magazine rated me the most devastating puncher in the profession, pound for pound.

  What was it like, being a boxer in those days … ?

  Survival. If it worked out that you were on top, you made a living. And if you were three or four shades below the top, you scuffled for a buck. Fighters were very, very hungry.

  I made some pretty big scores. But I spent it practically all on getting my brothers out of penitentiaries around the country. At that time, the one in San Quentin stood me thirty thousand, the one in Jefferson City stood me twenty-five thousand. Those were big give-ups in those days.

  I lived from the bottom to the top. I lived as good as you could live. I run the gamut of having a butler and a chauffeur to a flop joint, into an open car over night.

  He describes the boxing “combination” of those days; the fix; the refusal of his manager and himself to “play ball”; the boxer as an investment, cut up “like a watermelon.”

  I had many injuries in between. My hands, you can see. (He holds out his gnarled, broken knuckles.) In the meantime, I had to step out and make a dollar otherwise. It was never within the law.

  I’ve switched craps, I’ve run up the cards, I do the complete bit. Every way known to the human brain. I’m probably a rare species that’s left.

  Was muscle always involved?

  Muscle if you hope to leave with the money. Muscle everywhere, yes. Because for some unknown reason, muscle has been going on since the Roman Army conquered the field with a way of life.

  When you enter an endeavor unsuccessfully, then the planning was incorrect. The risk was above the gains, and you stumble along the way. And the windup is a rude awakening with numbers strung out over your back. Unsuccessful in your modus operandi. Sagacity, ingenuity, planning … it involves much weighing, odds against failure, odds against gain —if you care to be in a free society.

  I spent much time in jail. That’s why I’m a student of the matter.

  (At this point, Kid Pharaoh and he conducted a vigorous and somewhat arcane debate concerning the relative dishonesty of Hoover and Roosevelt. The Kid insisted it was Hoover who, by clout, was saved from “the bucket.” Doc was equally certain it was F.D.R. who should have had “numbers strung out over his shoulders.”)

  Do you recall your biggest haul during the Thirties?

  It was alleged—

  Who alleged … ?

  The newspaper report came out as $75,000. We took eight and were happy about the whole thing.

  What was your role during Prohibition?

  I was a cheater. After studying under Count Lustig and Ace Campbell, I considered it beneath my dignity delivering a barrel of beer. Although I drink beer. I hustled with crap mobs, on the crimp, the weave, the holdout —the reason I didn’t do the rum running is you can hire a mooch with muscle. But can you hire brains? Big firms have not succeeded in doing this.

  I have met only several proficient men in my time. One of them was Jack Freed. (Cups hand over mouth, whispers.) D-e-a-d. He worked right up to the edge of his demise. This is in the evening, when you are not at home. He was dedicated to his labor. He spent half his lifetime in the penitentiaries. One of my closest friends. I, of course, assisted him, from time to time. He accused me of rattling my coat one night, making entrance. I, who have endeavored in every participation known to the human brain, where art, subterfuge and guile is involved.

  I take it you were caught a few times—

  Incarcerated. Nothing proven substantially. I was a victim of circumstances. What they were, I didn’t say. Yes, I spent a year in Salinas, California, amongst other places. The highlight was when I was nineteen. If 1 get convicted, I’m going out to join my brother in San Quentin. My brother was doing twenty years there. If I’m not convicted, I’m going up to visit him. I’m going to San Quentin, one way or the other.

  And you did?

  I did. As a free man. I was fortunate enough in having one of the greatest criminal lawyers of all time defending me.

  For someone engaging in your varied skills, do you sense a difference between the Thirties and today?

  It’s so different today, it’s unfathomable. You can’t conjure what the difference is. Today everything is a robot. Today everything is mechanical. There is very little ingenuity. Everything today is no-personal, there is no personality whatsoever. Everything today is ipso facto, fait accompli. In my era they had to prove their point. Today, you don’t have to prove your point.

  Back then Ace Campbell steered Arnold Rothstein,86 with Nigger Nate Raymond, into one of maybe the biggest card games was ever involved. I was a small feature of it in the Park Central Hotel in New York. Ace changed the weave (laughs), and when Rothstein wound up a half-a-million loser, he said he was cheated. Rothstein became jaded after he lost the half a million, no longer had any interest. No interest in life. After the card game broke up, he said he was no longer interested in this, that or the other. He refused to pay off. So Nigger Nate Raymond held court with him. And that was the end of that.

  Held court … ?

  The S & W people87 had the implements that they held court with. That’s all. Rothstein didn’t have to pay off. You understand what I mean? I know, because I assisted in the operation with Ace. But let that be as it may. It was unfortunate, yes. But that was his demise.

  Were the S & W people popular those days?

  Naturally, it was part of your wearing apparel.

  Aren’t some of the survivors in legitimate enterprises today?

  One of the fellows who was a pimp in Chicago is the boss of one of the grandest hotels in Las Vegas. I assisted him in a few small matters. But true to all pimping, he forgot me entirely as he advanced into the autumn of life.

  After Prohibition, what did the guys do?

  The ones that were adroit enough branched into other fields. If they didn’t have any knowledge, they fell by the wayside. I achieved some small success in race tracks. Machine Gun Jack McGurn 88 couldn’t stand the traffic. He got his brains blowed out, branching into other fields.

  The night Prohibition was repealed, everybody got drunk. It was the only decent thing Roosevelt ever did in his Administration. I was not one of his admirers. I tried to fire him on four different occasions. If I ever had a person work for me that displeased me, it was Roosevelt. I voted against him four times.

  What was it about him you didn’t like?

  Him being a con man, taking adv
antage of poor, misguided, gibbering idiots who believed in his fairy tales. The New Deal, the various gimmicks, the NRA … the complete subterfuge, artifice and guile….

  Some say Roosevelt saved our society… .

  I dare say it would have been saved if Roosevelt’s mother and father had never met.

  Many people were on relief … on WPA… .

  I didn’t have a thing to do with that, because I was above that. Nevertheless, the people that were involved in it did it merely to get some meat on the plates, some food in the kitchen. It was no more, no less. Survival. None of the connotations of social dissent that has crept in since then. Merely an abstract way of eating….

  What do you think would happen if there were a big Depression today?

  Very simple. They’d commit suicide today. I don’t think they’re conditioned to stand it. We were a hardier race then. We’d win wars. We didn’t procrastinate. We’d win them or lose them. Today we’re a new race of people. They’ll quit on a draw—if they see any feasible way to see their way out to quit with any dignity, they’ll quit. Back then, you had a different breed of people. You got $21 a month going into the army or the navy. So them guys, they went to win the war. There’s been an emancipated woman since the beginning of the war, also.

  KID PHARAOH interjects: “The American woman during the Depression was domesticated. Today, as we move into the late Sixties, if you go into any high school, you don’t see any classes of cooking any more. You don’t see any classes at all in sewing. None of them can boil water. They’re all today in business in competition to the male animal. Why should a Playboy bunny make $200 a week? If a veteran goes to war, puts his life up … can’t raise a family.”

  Doc: “… a lot of country bumpkins in the city wanting to look at poor, misguided, gibbering idiot waitresses. That they’ve stripped down like a prostitute, but hasn’t sense enough to know that it’s on her alleged sex allure that the poor misguided chump is in the place. In the end it amounts to absolutely nothing. A hypothesis of silly nothingness … undressed broads serving hootch, that cannot fulfill… .”