Common Customs

If a public servant, for a bribe or whatever, permits the violation of a law, he is Corrupt.

Is a private citizen Corrupt who, by bribery or otherwise, tries to make or save money by breaking or evading the law?

The U, S. customs and Prohibition laws are probably the ones most commonly broken by the general run of U. S. citizens. Two incidents last week, though involving no evidence of attempted bribery, set citizens wondering about Corruption among private citizens.

Ziegfeld's Folly. Across the U. S. boundary line at Rouse's Point, N. Y., came a train of which one unit was the "Roamer," private car of Jacob Leonard Replogle, New York Steelman. Mr. and Mrs. Replogle were aboard and so were Dr. Jerome Wagner of Manhattan, a brother of U S. Senator Robert Wagner of New York, and Florenz Ziegfeld, famed girl-glorifier, producer of the perennial Follies. They had been visiting at the Wagner camp near Quebec.

It was 9 a. m. and the Messrs. Ziegfeld and Wagner had not arisen for the day. Neither had the Replogles. When the Customs inspector came through, Mr. Ziegfeld said yes, he had no alcoholics. The Replogles said no, they had none either. Dr. Wagner, however, spoke up and admitted he had some whiskey left in a bottle. The "Roamer's" porter confessed he had a bottle of beer.

The inspector frowned, apologized, searched, discovered:

Whiskey....................................................50 bottles

Brandy.......................................................54 bottles

Ale..............................................................44 bottles

Mr. and Mrs. Replogle denied all knowledge of where it came from. But the "Roamer" was uncoupled and detained at Rouse's Point until Dr. Wagner and Producer Ziegfeld had been fined $614.

Lawyer Steuer.* In Manhattan, it leaked out that Max D. Steuer had been obliged to pay $5,251.30 in duties and fines for an improper customs declaration which his wife had made out for them jointly. Inspectors had discovered $2,625.65 (U. S. value) worth of dresses, lingerie, etc., etc., in the Steuer luggage which Mrs. Steuer had neglected to mention.

It was embarrassing for Mr. Steuer because he already enjoys a fame bordering on notoriety. He is a lawyer. Not brilliant mentally, he excels at courtroom melodramatics of a type which many a jury has found seductive. "The Belasco of the Bar," he has been called, by persons not trying to compliment Producer David Belasco.

Lawyer Steuer hastened to explain that the undeclared goods had all belonged to his wife, not to himself. Then "merely ... to demonstrate that there was no possibility for the Government to be wronged of a cent or that she or I should profit a cent," Lawyer Steuer made this astonishing statement:

"I would like to call attention to the fact that whatever is paid by way of customs duties is deductible from income tax. My income tax for the year 1928 will be (as it has for many years been and would be if I had no income for the balance of the year) very many times $900 and many times $5,251. Mrs. Steuer's income tax, separately payable by her upon her income, amounts to many times $900 and a number of times $5,251.

Coming from a lawyer who demands the fees that he does, this Steuerism was either astounding stupidity or an example of bold, high-priced trickery. U. S. customs duties are deductible, not from one's income tax, but from one's gross income. Moreover, penalties or fines paid for infractions of the law are in no case deductible.

* Pronounced "Staw-yer."