Bawdy Boston (Cont.)

TOWNS AND CITIES

Bawdy Boston (Cont.)

A prime exhibit of "Bawdy Boston" (expose article in Plain Talk by Walter W. Liggett (TIME, Dec. 23) was Oliver Bridge Garrett, onetime "million-dollar cop" of the Boston police force, now a pensioner of Massachusetts taxpayers. Investigator Liggett reported that, with no visible income beyond his $40-a-week salary as head of the vice squad, Patrolman Garrett used to maintain a blooded-stock farm, a racing stable, a Cadillac, a Marmon, a Chrysler, a wardrobe of $150 tailored suits. Suddenly, last August, Patrolman Garrett was reduced to a pavement beat. Said Writer Liggett: "It is the belief of Boston newspaper reporters that Garrett was 'bagman' for certain higher-ups who finally got rid of him because they were not satisfied with their percentage of the split." Patrolman Garrett refused to patrol, asked a vacation, got it. Returning, he asked retirement with a pension; he said his skull had been cracked on duty. He was retired, pensioned. Writer Liggett suggested the skullcracking might have occurred at a racetrack accident when Garrett was driving a horse that belonged to a bootlegger friend.

Boston's police are directed by state, not city, officials. In February, the Massachusetts House of Representatives (accused of Wet parties in the Liggett article) voted to have State Attorney General Joseph E. Warner investigate the Garrett case. Last week to the legislature, and to Governor Frank G. Allen, the attorney general made his report. Verified and even expanded were Writer Liggett's charges and suspicions about Patrolman Garrett. Instead of suppressing bawdy houses, he sold them milk from his half-bootlegger-owned stock farm. Instead of raiding liquor joints, he ran a racket in them. Proprietors and others withholding tribute had their homes raided, without warrant, and often missed jewelry thereafter.

But it was Police Commissioner Herbert A. Wilson of Boston who received the full force of the attorney general's wrath. The commissioner had countenanced Garrett's conduct, even when warned by onetime Governor Alvan Tufts Fuller; the commissioner had obtained Garrett's fraudulent pension for him.

After reading the attorney general's report, the Governor of Massachusetts last week wrote to the police commissioner of Boston: "I require the immediate presentation of your resignation." Commissioner Wilson declined to resign, replied that he was "conscious of no neglect," criticized the attorney general for "garbled phraseology."

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