Bawdy Boston

Able and avid to censor books and plays within its city limits, Boston tries also to censor magazines. In 1926 it impeded sales of the American Mercury containing "Hatrack." Last spring it pounced on Scribner's for the serial instalments of Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms." Last week magazine readers watched to see what Boston would do about the January number of Plain Talk, which contained a sizzling article about Boston itself.

Results were speedy. The city's clergy unanimously voted an investigation. Police Commissioner Herbert A. Wilson issued broad denials. Massachusetts' Governor Frank G. Allen ordered his Attorney-General to take "right and proper" action. The article, by Walter W. Liggett, was called "Bawdy Boston." Its charges, stretching over the past decade, were specific:

Prostitution. "Federal inspectors declared that last year 1,000 girls were shipped to Boston by the white slave ring which operates in some 30 New England cities. . . . There are eleven [syndicate] houses in Boston . . . scores of other 'houses.' . . . Boston is swarming with streetwalkers" [TIME, Oct. 7].

Narcotics. "It is openly alleged in Boston that Charles ('King') Solomon is head of the dope racket ... is the chief source of supply for all wires, runners, peddlers and addicts in New England . . . has reaped unbelievable profits."

Blackmail. Two Bostonian District Attorneys and a Federal District Attorney's assistant put the "age-old badger game on a big business basis." It cost disporting cinema tycoons $105,000 to hush up one party; $120,000 preserved the reputation of a famed tenor; $380,000 kept a New England railroad president's name unsullied.

Bootlegging. "Largest and best paying racket in Boston." An annual $60,000,000 is spent in Boston's 4,000 speakeasies or paid to 5,000 Bostonian bootleggers. The liquor ring is bossed by a onetime policeman who on the side dabbles in a trucking business, restaurants, cigar stores, pool rooms, an amusement arena, prize fighters.

He is " 'in right' very high up indeed," can smash small operators. Hip-pocket bootleggers, some boys not over 16, peddle booze "under the 'L' on Washington Street." In nearly every office building is at least one speakeasy. Boston police deliver good whiskey to customers.

Corruption. When he was Governor of Massachusetts (1925-29), Alvan Tufts Fuller charged that Boston's Mayor Malcolm E. Nichols delayed subway construction to let his friends buy up the right-of-way, then sell it to the city at exorbitant prices. He named specific instances, said: "The people of Boston are being systematically robbed by a group of ... politicians." He once referred to the Mayor as "in his usual irresponsible condition."

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