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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1932)
> — _• _____ _ - ■ . _ * " *' T^V„rj ckl~f* ILLUSTRATED FEATURE SECTION—October 1, 1932 BLlK B,w%™T™TtKr m^«vek1 WE„ ,N _ - - - -. -- - ----- I “THE CLEAN -UP A Voting Evangelist L ses Gangster Methods to Clean I p Harlem Cabarets Will Linda Make Her Escape from Ace’s Strong Room with Its Electric Doorway? Will She Be Able to Join Fred Harris, Evangelist, in His Drive Against Numbers Barons and Nite Clubs in Harlem? Will the Big Gamblers Stop Now that their First Bullets Failed to Find a Vital Spot and Wounded the Clean-Up Preacher Instead of Killing Him? - < By NICK LEWIS ' WHAT HAS HAPPENED: Linda Allen, singer In Ace Hinds's cabaret, the Tom Tom Club, falls in love with Fred Harris, a young evangelist from her honvp town, who is carrying on a campaign from his gospel tent to rid Harlem of its places of night life. Visiting the Tom-Tom to see Linda, Fred is shot at, but not killed, by some unknown assailant, v Linda's contract with the Ace expires. but when she informs him of her desire to quit he Is furious He offers to com promise: If Linda will influence Fred to give up his drive against Harlem’s night .•ife. he will give her no trouble. But if Fred's drive continues, he warns her, his life will be In constant danger. Linda refuse^ disdainfully to take his suggestion and he, Infuriated, tries to force a promise from her. She screams and suddenly a man leaps through the £oor and hurls him elf on the Ace's back NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY: CHAPTER V In the semi-darkness Linda watched with bated breath as the two men fought savagely back and forth across the room which served as the Ace’s headquarters. Who was this who had come to her rescue? Who had dared to cross the Ace? Her questions were answered shortly as she watched the Ace catch his assailant, eyes burning with the accumulated hatred of many years, and back him against the steel-jacketed door. “All” It was Al! Diminutive Al Collins, piano plunker with her act! For a long time she had known that he liked her, but somehow she had never given him credit for guts enough to step into a breach like this. The Ace .was nearly twice as big, And, with his gang, many times more powerful than Al. Yet the smalled man bore in courageously, frantically, with flaying arms that seemed endowed with almost in credible strength. The Ace had him now; was forcing him back wards across the room, bending his back across the corner of that heavy mahogany desk. With fury born of desperation he struggled to free himself, but the Aoe was undoubt edly the stronger. Iron fingers bit into his neck; black spots danced before his eyes. Linda, watching this amazing Struggle from a comer of the room, <aw plainly that A1 stood not the slightest ghost of a chance against the Ace. Slowly his body was giv ing under the strain, bending back ward sickeningly under the clawing fingers of the larger man. How long could he stand this torture? The Ace's face held a smile now, a grim, . mocking smile of determination. She gathered her wits quickly and looked about her > frantical/y. Could she help? There on the desk, where the Ace always kept it for his own protection, lay a gleaming blue steel revolver. She watched him now. panic-stricken, as he clawed for it with his one free arm. Then with a sudden determination she rushed to the desk; seized it herself. The Ace, his attention fixed upon his struggle with Al, had almost completely forgotten about Linda, Now as he saw her grab the revolver, - ■ " (n f 'iM\|ip 1 In that brief moment of hesitation, Al’s revolver was in action. The Ace went down with a bullet through his right hand and thigh. snatching it out of his fingers just as he was reaching for it himself, sudden realization of her presence flooded him. He released his death grip on A1 and whirled suddenly upon the girl. But she halted him in his tracks, his nose pointed into the grim muzzle of his own re volver. He hesitated, then took his gun from her hand as though she were a baby. In that brief second of hesitation Al’s revolver was out and in action. Ace went down with a bullet through his right hand and the fleshy part of his thigh. His gun clattered to the floor. In a few brief seconds he had slumped to the ground, ex hausted. A1 picked up the Ace’s revolver and crashed it, butt down, across his head. “Just,” he said briefly, “for good luck." Linda rushed to him, eyes ex pressing the sincere gratitude which filled her heart. “Come on,” he clipped out. “We’d better get but of this dump pronto. The Ace’ll have his whole gang on our trails before tomorrow, and be lieve me, it’s gonna be hot!” c Linda pressed the desk button which released the heavy door and together they swept out of the room, down the long, narrow hall way and into the street. At the Harlem Hospital they found Fred almost completely re covered from his gunshot injuries. Gathered about his white enameled cot, they laid tentative plans for a retaliatory campaign, plans which would have startled all gangland had they been made public. A week later the young evangelist returned to his Gospel Tent, and with him came Linda Allen and A1 Collins. Linda’s name and reputa tion was sure to draw crowds into the tent, and Fred’s persuasive ora tory could be counted upon to do the rest. “We have within our midst," he told his many hundreds of listeners each nighty “one of the most in sidious systems of racketeering ever known to man. There’s the numbers racket, the night club racket, the oeer racket, and dozens of others, ill formed for the single purpose f taking money out of the pockets of you poor folks. Are we going to let them go on this way, robbing you, robbing your children of the ad vantages they should have? Are we going to sit by and starve while these gangsters, these racketeers grow fat off what you earn?” And in reply there came a full throated roar: “NO!” Harlem, at last, was waking up. Stirred by the sincerity and the ir refutability of Fred’s arguments, its citizens were gradually being arous ed out of the deadly torpor which had engulfed them for so many years. “If the police won’t put a stop to these evils,” Fred told them, “we’ll have to get busy ourselves. Every man among you will have to do his part by refusing to patronize those businesses which you know are con trolled by gangsters and racketeers. Refuse to play the numbers any longer, refuse to give your money to those who guarantee you nothing in return. Refuse to go into those night clubs and cabarets where you are overcharged and fleeced at every turn. Refuse to pay your good money for liquor which you know is likely to be poisonous and highly diluted. It’s only in this way that we’ll ever run these hoodlums out of town. There’s no way in the v/orld they can continue to exist in the face of such a concerted drive as we are planning here now!” It was amazing to see how rapidly the movement took hold on the mind6 of Harlem's populace. Night ly the crowds at the gospel tent grew larger, nightly their denun ciations of gangster rule grew stronger. A broadcasting system, sensing the increasing interest in the young evangelist’s war against gangdom, carried Fred’s voice into nearly every home in Harlem three times a week. And the newspapers, watching the extraordinary move ment with increasing interest, chimed in with stirring editorials. “The time has come,” they all agreed, "when the concerted action which has long been Harlem’s greatest need seems to be ripening into reality. In Fred Lewis, mili C’ontinued on Page Four