Where Lawmen Went Blind

CHAPTER XVI

WHERE LAWMEN WENT BLIND

THE SORDID AND SORRY RECORD of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board in Phenix City stands out like a carbuncle on the face of law enforcement, and will rise time and time again to haunt honest officers who carry an ABC commission.

Without the cooperation and forbearance of ABC agents assigned to Russell County, life would not have been as easy or as profitable for the operators of the dozens of dives that specialized in cheap liquor and expensive entertainment.

It wasn't until July 23, 1954, that any concrete action was taken against joints which had flouted the state's liquor laws for years. On that date, acting on direct orders from Governor Persons National Guardsmen struck quickly all over Russell County and lifted every liquor and beer license in sight.

As beer licensees were screened and found worthy, the licenses were returned. As this is written there is not a single liquor license in Russell County. The far-reaching order by the governor followed by one week his historic order establishing martial rule, and disarming all local law enforcement officers.

Agents of the ABC Board were affected with an ailment that was common to nearly all law enforcement agencies which operated in this wide-open territory. They were unable to see things that were obvious to all others— even to the most casual observer.

It took an all-out campaign by newspapers to bring about the liquor drought in Phenix City, which an alert ABC Board should have accomplished years before. .Month after month, year after year, the ABC agents made their report from Phenix City. Each report neglected to recommend action against places which violated the board's own rules, as well as state laws, every hour in the day.

Vigorous enforcement of the rules would have prevented Phenix City from becoming the honky-tonk mecca of the South, and would have removed the revenue source of scores of riff-raff, vagrants and clip-artists.

The rules of the ABC Board state that any beer or liquor license may be revoked following violations of any state laws on the premises. Gambling, of course, is an activity which is punishable under state law.

Most of the places in Phenix City held Federal Wagering Stamps and ABC licenses simultaneously. Had the officers bothered to pay an occasional pop call on any one of the joints, they would have had to elbow their way through the slot machines and dice tables to get to the cash registers. They would have had to step over the drunks and drugged customers, and resist advances from the prostitutes and B-girls that haunted every bar.

None of this was obvious to ABC agents, who went merrily along, making an occasional "raid" to keep the operators in line, and to make the record look good. Most of the so-called raids turned our to be little more than a visit from an old friend. Operators were often tipped well in advance so that neither party would be embarrassed in the presence of the guests.

The officers apparently never bothered to check gambling stamps against liquor licenses. State law makes the mere possession of a gambling stamp evidence of gambling. It should have been sufficient to lift the license. In several of the bistros, The operators stated publicly that they didn't want soldier trade, because it interfered with regular gambling operations. If this public information bothered any officer, it doesn't show on the record. The records did show, however, that the liquor agents spent much of their time trying to get places back "on limits" that had been restricted by the Army to service personnel. There again, the officers never seemed to take the hint when the Army declared a place off limits because of gambling or prostitution. They could lose their soldier trade, but they had never a worry about losing their licenses to sell the raw hooch that most of them palmed off at a buck a shot.

A number of places were placed off limits by the Army because of the soldiers that were mugged, doped, beaten and robbed there.

The ABC men saw no violation which they considered would justify them in lifting a license.

Occasionally, when a license would be lifted, it had a suspicious tinge of politics about it. The joint would soon reopen, with a brand new license issued to some member of the inner circle.

To show how alert were the men charged with enforcing liquor regulations in Phenix, consider for a moment the Bamboo Club, operated by W. T. Thurmond, Jr. For five years heavy gambling had gone on nightly at the club. Reporters visited the place on many occasions and observed the games and wrote stories about the Bamboo Club. On more than one occasion, ABC officers were observed in the place, but the license was never lifted. Both this club, and the 241 Club nearby, were placed off limits by the Armed Forces Disciplinary Control Board in the early Summer of 1954, because of gambling there. Blind officers missed it, somehow.

Finally, three days after Patterson was killed, the ABC Board did revoke the license of the Bamboo Club, but not until after Guardsmen hauled gambling paraphernalia from the place. The only other license lifted by the Board between the time of the Patterson murder and the declaration of martial rule on July 23, was the one at Claridy's place. It was one of the first dives from which Guardsmen pulled slot machines, and had long been off-limits to soldiers.

At the Bama Club, on Dillingham Street, famous among the gambling set from New York to Miami, the sky was the limit on the high dice table. It was at the Bama Club in 1953 that Chief Deputy Sheriff Albert Fuller led a "raid" while two news reporters watched the dice continue to roll. There was $20,000 on the table, and the dice room was nearly filled. Fuller, a native of Phenix City and a frequent visitor at the club, reported later that he didn't go into the dice room because he thought it was the women's rest room.

Its ABC license was intact when the Governor's order was issued on July 23,

The licenses were never lifted from Club 431, or Cliff's Fish Camp, though Army authorities had labeled them two of the worse prostitution dives in the area. The 431 Club operated the Circle C Motel, where rooms were often rented a dozen times in a single night.

Gambler E. L. (Red) Cook, now serving a life term for murder, had a long list of arrests behind him and was widely recognized as the underworld "enforcer" in Phenix City.

It was a fact in which he took great pride, and often bragged to friends that he could have a murder done simply by picking up the telephone and making a call. Yet Cook stood in so well with the ABC Board that it granted him a license to operate a wholesale beer distributing firm.

There were seventy federal gambling stamps current when the cleanup started. Almost all of them were issued to locations holding ABC liquor licenses. One week after Patterson's murder, the board sent twenty agents to Phenix City to ride herd on the night spots. Their orders were to see that the 1 A.M. closing hour fixed by law was observed. Those twenty agents could have been used to good advantage a week before the murder, or any time during the previous decade.

While the board got all upset about closing hours after the murder, nobody had bothered to notice for years before that the watering spots closed each night about the time the sun broke through.

The ABC Board has a set of rules which, if observed, would have prevented most of the operators in Phenix from obtaining a liquor or beer permit in the first place. One of the rules provide that a man must be of good character, with no criminal record, in order to get a liquor license. In the face of this rule, licenses were issued to places operated by C. O. Revel, H. J. Revel, Godwin Davis and Godwin Davis Jr., George Davis Sr., Glenn and Ernest Youngblood, Cook, and a host of others who had equally odoriferous records. These were the men of "good character" who held the licenses to sell liquor.

The Manhattan Cafe was owned and operated by Godwin Davis and his son, and the license was issued in his son's name-a neat bit of ball hiding in the backfield. But neither father nor son could have qualified under ABC regulations for a license. Both have criminal records, and it was a matter of public record from court testimony that they operated the million dollar National Lottery Company.

Godwin, Sr., has a record dating back to 1925. From 1925 to 1952, he had no less than twenty-one criminal charges against him, including one for murder on which he was never tried. The federal government looked at the Davis record and denied him a permit to handle malt beverages wholesale. All this, apparently, was news to the state enforcement agency.

After the license was granted to the Manhattan, it could have been revoked with ample reason at any time. In addition to the gambling at the cafe, which could have been observed from the street, the Manhattan spent less than $300 a month for food, and as much as $3,000 a month for liquor. The beer wasn't even counted.

The rules of the ABC Board state that a licensee must purchase each month at least twice as much food as liquor. The license holder is required to fill out a form monthly showing the amount of food purchased, and where the purchases were made. The report also has to show the amount of liquor the licensee bought.

On the some report was a statement of the board's rule solemnly proclaiming that food purchases must double liquor purchases, under penalty of license revocation. Say this for the Davises: They didn't even bother to falsify the records. They knew they had no worries from the ABC Board.

How did board officials in Montgomery react to disclosures in Phenix?

They were annoyed, not at their own agents who had miserably failed to give even a token of law enforcement, but at newspapers for mentioning the facts to the public.

Board Chairman W. K. Thames Jr., [now out of office] and ABC Administrator R. P. McRee, [now in another ABC post] admitted there was much that could have been done, but showed remarkably little concern over the fact that it wasn't. Thames seemed surprised that anyone should inquire into the board's actions, or search for reasons why the law had not been enforced during the three and a half years he had been with the agency.

He showed no surprise, however, when informed that most of the persons holding liquor licenses in Phenix had long criminal records, and no concern over the fact that licensees held federal gambling stamps.

As far as criminal records went, he said, the board was governed by recommendation of municipalities as to whom should be given licenses. The fact-well known even then-that Phenix City's government and law enforcement agencies were controlled lock, stock and barrel by racket forces, did not seem reason enough for the board to deviate from its practice.

One of the board's rules was that a liquor license should be lifted from any place operating a slot machine or punch board. Thames said they had many complaints from Phenix City concerning slot machines.

In every instance, he said, agents were sent to check the places about which citizens had complained. The check by agents and Sheriff Ralph Matthews always turned our the same way: No slot machines or punch boards could be found.

The board had available another source from which it could have obtained valuable information on slot machines and punch boards, if it had wished to do so. Until October 1, 1953, the state issued a black market slot machine and punch board license. The license did not make the gambling devices legal, but was a method by which the state kept track of their locations and, at the same time, gathered some revenue from them.

During the entire period that Thames was serving on the ABC Board and McRee as administrator, it kept two agents in Russell County full time. They were Ben Scroggins and Walter Hendricks. Scroggins was one of Chief Deputy Fuller's closest friends, having been with the gun-swinging deputy on two occasions when Fuller had killed men. Scroggins was ordered out of the area by General Hanna when the National Guard took over. He has since been charged with severely beating a man whom he was questioning.

Thames declared that the board was assured at the beginning of the administration that no gambling or prostitution would be allowed to operate in places holding a liquor license. The promise, he said, was made by Mayor J. D. Harris, Sheriff Matthews and City Commissioner Roy Green.

The three men came to the board as soon as it took over under the new administration, to find out what its policies were to be. That was in the spring of 1951. Thames said he told them he intended to enforce ABC regulations.

"They assured us they would cooperate with the ABC Board. They promised there would be no gambling, prostitution or 'bug' operations in any place holding a liquor license," Thames said.

He believed them at the time, he said, because he had no alternative but to believe them.

Since the cleanup got underway. Guard investigators have made cases against several operators for violating ABC regulations.

Even though the total rake-in from racket operations amounted to millions of dollars each month, the greedy joint operators did not hesitate to re-bottle partially consumed drinks to add to the profits.

Thames said there was absolutely no truth to reports that gamblers in Phenix City had been given protection by the Persons administration.

"I am certain no one had been given instructions or even intimated to ABC agents assigned to Russell County that they can wink at law violations or must check with any individual there before making cases,*' Thames said. "At least," he added, "since I have been a member of the board."

He said they had adhered to a firm policy of enforcing the law and letting the chips fall where they may.

"We haven't played any favorites," he declared.

About the wiretap conversations in which Shepherd said he and his friends could expect special treatment because they were "friends of the administration," Thames said he knew nothing.

That conversation did not refer to the Persons administration, but to its predecessor, the administration of James E. Folsom,

Whatever the policies or aims of the board in its relationship with Phenix City's racket high command, the record speaks for itself. The story it tells is one that Alabama's liquor law