Defining crime

What is crime and where does it dwell in American society?
Gus Russo in his authoritative book, The Outfit, makes the distinction between two types of crime – underworld and upperworld – and how the difference between the two often depends on which side of the line you’re standing. Once upon a time, Coca-Cola contained actual cocaine, and cocaine was sold as a legitimate medicine. Alcohol was legal, illegal, and legal again. Marijuana was legal, illegal, now legal (in some states). Prostitution is illegal (except where it’s legal). Off-track betting was illegal until it became legal. And today’s river boat casinos are literal takes on the old “floating crap game.”

Were the robber barons who built America entrepreneurs or criminals? Look deeply into the pasts of John D. Rockefeller, Philip Armour, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, C.P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, George Hearst, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, James Duke, and others, and you’ll likely find examples of French writer, Honoré de Balzac’s famous dictum: “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
Examples of upperworld crimes include things like Franklin Delano Rooslevelt selling political positions. Allegedly, Joseph P. Kennedy (one of America’s original bootleggers, gangsters, and criminals) first paid FDR $160,000 for his position at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Later, Kennedy paid FDR the same amount to appoint him Ambassador to the Court of St. James in England (a position Kennedy ran from as fast as his spindly legs could carry him once the Nazi bombs started falling).

John F. Kennedy is said to have relied heavily on his family’s network of underworld connections to secure the upperworld White House and later help with the Castro problem in Cuba (which ultimately toppled Kennedy’s house of cards) when he ran afoul of two powerful enemies: the CIA and the Outfit.

President Harry Truman got to the White House with the help of Kansas City boss Tom Pendergast. In his capacity as Chairman of the Jackson County (Kansas) Democratic Party, Pendergast used his network of associates to help elect politicians (sometimes through voter fraud) and hand out government contracts and patronage jobs. In the process of peddling graft, Pendergast grew rich. His organization launched the political career of Harry S. Truman, later causing Truman's enemies to dub him "The Senator from Pendergast."
​
After failing in business, Truman took the path of easy money and went into politics. In 1922, Pendergast suggested Truman run for office. With the help of the Pendergast machine, Truman was elected. From there, Pendergast pushed his puppet up to the political chain until Truman found himself in the Oval Office.

Today we have people in Congress who have never held a real private sector job. They exist to suckle off the teats of America’s taxpayers and apportion blame to the citizens who pay their bills and provide lavish perks. One guy’s only private sector job was driving the Oscar Meyer wiener-mobile in college. Then he married an heiress and stopped worrying about earning a living. We’ve had members of Congress of both parties convicted of tax evasion, sexual harassment, and other crimes and misdemeanors.

Our current president’s administration is mired under a toxic cloud of suspicion over his alleged connections to shadowy Russians, Chinese and Middle Eastern billionaires. True or false? We may never know. That won’t stop people on both sides of the issue from pleading their case in the court of public opinion. Is he violating the Constitution by taking money from foreign leaders? One court so far said no, while today a member of Congress filed Articles of Impeachment.

The conflict between the upperworld and underworld continues. We make no excuses for the terrible things committed by designated members of organized crime families. The violence warrants to excuse. But perspective is warranted. Organized crime is a direct result of organized government. When organized government told people they couldn’t have alcohol, prostitution and gambling, organized crime grew richer than the dreams of Midas by selling alcohol, prostitution and gambling to people who wanted alcohol, prostitution and gambling. Cause and effect.

Maybe if government stopped behaving like a stern parent of several billion unruly teenagers and allowed its adult citizens to make their own moral choices, there wouldn’t be as much crime. But probably not as long as crime greases the wheels of politics.