The police and the secret service are working day and night to protect our fireside from these beasts of a jungle that come to our very hearthstones — a jungle where the cries of the lost are like the drone of a myriad tropical insects humming through the menace of a fungus darkness.
As time went by, Hersey seemed stuck for new ways of expressing the same idea. By the August issue of Racketeer, the editorials had run their course. In that issue, Hersey talked up the new expanded size of the magazines, then added his “crime does not pay” comments as a coda. After that, the editorials disappear, as Hersey must have considered the crisis over.
Another feature was added to Gangster with the April issue. It was a column, titled Gangland that reprinted news stories about gangsters getting caught up with the law or coming to a bad end. Like the editorials, it was counter-programming for people offended by the stories; perhaps part of a legal defense strategy, in case needed. Gangland ran as a regular feature, then showed up in Racketeer with the November issue. We reprint the entire April column here as a representative sample.
Then, of course, there are the stories to consider in evaluating Hersey’s actions. An odd one is “Kid Dropper Plays It Alone,” from the February Racketeer. By virtue of the editorial, this should be considered a post-censorship issue. The story uses a bulletproof vest as a gimmick. The vest saves the Dropper in a shootout. But he’s picked up by the cops wearing the vest. Irony of ironies, the vest that saved him will now be the evidence that dooms him. But the cops confiscate his weapons, never see the vest, and inexplicably set him free. End of story and — huh? The ironic and natural conclusion would have satisfied Sumner’s objections, but that’s not the conclusion we get, even though the ending could have been Sumner-proofed with little effort. That shows the blurry line between the pre- and post-, and further suggests that this issue was not distributed in New York.
In “City of Bullets” (Gangster Stories, April 1930), gang leader Mike Regan lethally vanquishes his rival mobsters. The story ends with him raising a toast to his moll. It sounds like it would be offensive to the arbiters of morality, but this may actually be a “legal” post-censorship story. There were very few published guidelines for gang stories from any publisher, but according to a September 1930 Writer’s Digest freelance solicitation for Detective-Dragnet (formerly The Dragnet Magazine): “The gangster must not triumph over the law. However, when gang meets gang — either may win.” This may have been the core of Hersey’s agreement with Sumner. Aron Wyn, the listed editor of Detective-Dragnet, would have been all too aware of the controversy. In fact, The Dragnet changed title to Detective-Dragnet with the April 1930 issue, undoubtedly to shed some of Hersey’s taint. It also dropped the “Detective and Gangster Stories” banner from the front cover, though it retained it above the table of contents.
Gangster and Racketeer sold well enough that Hersey added two more gang titles in the summer of ’30, both debuting with June-July issues. He was apparently determined to guarantee that supply met, if not exceeded, demand. He may also have been concerned with competition from the new Popular Publications, which had promised that a gangster pulp would be among their initial titles. Hersey’s two new titles were Gangland Stories and Mobs, which were essentially similar. (Mobs ran only two issues, while Gangland continued into 1932. Our theory is that Hersey wanted one new gang pulp but couldn’t decide on a title. He tested the market with two and stayed with the best seller.)
That bit of background aside, Gangland’s second issue (August-September) contains one of the best examples of a story that seems rewritten to comply with the law, the sadistic “The ‘Eyes’ Have It.” The New York gangs have established Fat Siler’s speakeasy as a no-warfare zone. Into this oasis of peace wanders a “congenital killer” called the Chi Kid, from the other gang capital. He murders a drunk and belligerent racketeer who all the New Yorkers know to ignore. This starts a violent contest between the Chi Kid and the boss of bosses, Martin Farrell. A gun duel provides a fitting climax. The natural narrative thrust of the story is that because he broke the peace, the Chi Kid will come to a bad end at the hand of Farrell, a happy end to bracket the happy opening. Paradise regained. However, after the call to “fire” during the duel, the story cuts away to a news story which reports that that both men were shot and killed simultaneously, and that Farrell’s gang was quickly rounded up. The ending may have satisfied the censors, but it betrays the narrative and thus leaves a bad taste.
By contrast, “The Singing Kid,” in the November Gangland, integrates the police presence through the length of the narrative, so that when the Kid is brought to justice at the conclusion, it feels like a natural, not forced, event. It reads like a story that was written with the editorial and legal requirements firmly in mind. A similar example is “A Long Chance” (Racketeer Stories, June-July 1930). A detective is well-entrenched in the narrative; he eventually brings the protagonist-thieves to justice, closing with the observation, “All crooks are so damn dumb.” The only catch is that the detective is crooked, using his badge to coerce the female thief, and confiscating stolen money for himself. He doesn’t come to justice, but apparently, that wasn’t a problem.
Did the censors have a long-term effect? “Glycerined Gangsters” (Racketeer Stories, November 1930) recounts another mob war, with one gang prevailing after creating horrendous public mayhem and a trail of carnage. At the end, the gangster and his moll embrace in their car, while a passing beat cop warns them, “No petting parties allowed! Move on!” It’s a light, comical follow-up to some very heavy violence, and strongly implies the law’s impotence, quite similar to the pre-censorship story, “When China Jo Lost His Woman.” It raises the question of whether Sumner’s threat made a permanent difference.
We can point to a ripple effect through the industry. Publishers were put on guard. As mentioned, when Hersey came under fire, Ace quickly changed the title of The Dragnet to Detective-Dragnet and de-emphasized gangster stories on the cover. The Underworld retained the same mix of detective and gangster stories, but we weren’t able to examine any issues for further details. A February 1932 solicitation blurb for Underworld in Writer s Digest read: “We do not want stories that glorify the gangster. It is best to observe the rule of ‘Crime Doesn’t Pay.’ ”
Black Mask is the best-remembered crime pulp of the day, and in a September 1930 letter in Writer’s Digest, editor Joseph Shaw weighed in on the gang-story question and showed himself to be the anti-Hersey:
...as far as I have any knowledge, Black Mask has published only one story in which the gangster was in any sense the “hero,” and that story is the great novel by Dashiell Hammett, which recently was published by us serially under the title of “The Glass Key.” This was a story of modern gangsters, a seriously written and highly dramatic presentation of the present day alliance between corrupt politicians and public officials and organized crime — which alliance is the sole reason for the profitableness of crime as a profession.