Here, then, is the magnificent spectacle of a group of half-breed gorillas bulldozing the most powerful government on earth — and getting away with it. And our writers, industriously turning out gang stories, ignore that picture completely and display interest only in the incidental extermination of the vermin.
The truly great gang story — and one will be written before long, I think — will not deal with the fighting among these underworld lice, but with their relation to men in public office. That they are closely allied, in a business way, with the very officials who are paid to prosecute them is too evident for argument.
Chicago has long had the reputation of being the fountainhead of this national evil, and it is accepted as a commonplace that Chicago is the world headquarters for gangsters of every stripe. But these honors, statistics show, really belong to New York City. Chicago’s reputation is due less to its gang activities than to its vigorous press-agenting. The Chicago gangsters are more spectacular, and therefore make better publicity.
New York’s gang killings, however, outnumber those in Chicago. In the first 135 days of this year 153 deaths were recorded with the New York police, or an average of more than one murder a day. As for other crimes of major proportion, such as highway robbery, burglary and the like, 135 or more are reported every week.
Grover Whalen, who resigned last month as Police Commissioner of New York, is authority for the statement that his city has more than 50,000 gangsters and racketeers. Their net income is in excess of three hundred million dollars a year. This doesn’t include one hundred millions paid out in graft. The New York police know of 996 gang hangouts in their city.
And so, you see, when choosing a locale for your gangster story you needn’t necessarily choose Chicago.
America’s gangdom is the most conspicuous blot on its civilization. As such, it is worthy the attention of your best writers. And it is reasonable to assume that the gang story — now reaching a point where it is second in popularity only to the detective story — may soon occupy a place in Literature With a Purpose.
Meanwhile, however, my readers are probably more interested in hitting the magazines than in producing social documents, and would rather hear something on How to Write a Gang Story.
In the main, the same technique applies here that is requisite for the successful detective story. There must be a well-constructed plot, an element of suspense and mystery, and a dramatic climax; and the best way to attain these is to have a complete working synopsis of your story before you start writing it.
Also, it is best not to make your story a too faithful transcript of actual life. Better describe your bootlegger or hijacker — or whatever his racket is — as the average person pictures him. Only take care not to glorify him. There is nothing heroic about these hoodlums.
Have a care, too, about your slang. Gangsters, of course, use a language all their own, and while some of their words are clear to everybody, others are quite unintelligible. Before putting a slang word in the mouth of one of your characters, ask yourself if that word is generally understood. If it isn’t, omit it. Many of the manuscripts dealing with gangdom are a hodgepodge of weird expressions that are as foreign to most readers as ancient Chinese.
When gangsters themselves try to write — as occasionally one of them does — they are almost incoherent. An eloquent illustration of their muddled talk may be found in Danny Ahearn’s late book, How to Commit a Murder. published by Ives Washburn. This book, according to the foreword, was dictated to a stenographer by Ahearn, who is a notorious gangster and old-time racketeer, and is published verbatim. Consider the following gem, plucked at random from Danny’s book:
The best way to kill a man is not to confide in anybody. Keep it just between yourself — you can’t trust everybody. He might have somebody in my own gang giving him information that I’m looking to clip him. I would look to see where he lives, or if he had an automobile I would put a piece of dynamite in his starter and blow him up in his car; or try to blow up his house. I would scheme another way, how to get a girl. I would get a broad to make him and give him a steer for me. I would take him that way, or else scheme him through her to give him a walk, and when he walks with her pick him up and throw him into a car. Take him and torture him. Find out who is steaming him on me. When he gives that information, kill him... The real point, how to commit a murder, is always use your heart and scheme a man out. Have a little patience, and you can get him in a right spot.
You get the idea, I trust. If you permit the gangsters in your story to talk as gangsters actually talk, you’re going to have a muddled jargon that will make your story seem ridiculous. Best play safe in writing your dialogue by striking a happy medium between the way gangsters really talk and the way they’re supposed to talk. Thus you get realism.
And realism, other things being equal, has sold many a story to the magazines.
Gangster Stories, August 1930
Our four gang story magazines: Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, Mobs, and Gangland Stories — all with the world-famous Blue Band on the covers — both entertain and teach us to watch out for the dangerous glitter of the underworld.
In the pages of these periodicals, stark Tragedy lifts her arms up through the night; Terror and Death, her close attendants. The staccato whine of the machine gun bullet is like the drone of insects in a great jungle. The screech of the police whistle breaks through that droning darkness. The cries of the lost fill our ears with a music more like madness than anything else.
But, from these thrilling paragraphs, bristling with gun action, comes moving truths. We learn as we are being entertained. We see how the gangster inevitably comes to ruin, though his brief career is one of false glamor and excitement.
Read the moral if you will.
Faithfully yours,
Harold Hersey
Racketeer Stories, August 1930
Beginning with the next, or October issue, Racketeer Stories will be increased to 192 pages and sell for 25¢ a copy. This means another fifty-one thousand words for only 5¢ more per copy. It makes this periodical the same size and thickness as the other Blue Band Magazines: Gangster Stories, Mobs and Gangland.
Fifty one thousand words, plus the sixty-five you are now getting for 20¢, in a great, bulky magazine of 192 full pages! And only 5¢ more!
More illustrations — double and single page — by famous artists.
The same high average of complete, double book-length novels in each and every issue.
Also the fine assortment of novelettes and short stories you are accustomed to reading in the Blue Band periodicals.
Put your order in now with your nearest newsdealer. The October issue will be on the newsstands the latter part of August.
RACKETEER STORIES, like GANGSTER STORIES, believes that crime does not pay, but it also believes that these stories are not only entertaining to an immense audience but packed with knowledge. Knowledge, after all, of conditions in the Underworld, should and does help us to guard against dangers.
Faithfully yours,
Harold Hersey