THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, JULY 8, 1960.
BROOKLYN'S FESTIVAL'
SUMMER has come to Brooklyn. You can tell it
from the damp, crumpled faces of the com- muters on the clevated railway which shudders along to Jamaica Beach over Williamsburg with a noise like a Shakespearean thunderstorm.
From the drunk, sound asleep, hunched over the gilt railings of the Chase Manhattan Bank. From the newspapers which rustle and flap along the whole length of the dreary, die-straight scorching pavements.
And across the road, where the pink neon lights flash the sign Funeral Parlour, is the most positive evidence ht the équinox Brooklyn haj -- the body of Nelson Rosado, the i- year-old who died with a knife h his heart on the Arst bright day
June of summer.
the
twenty-first, nineteen sixty.
Baseball bats
and knives
As certainly as the crowds go to Coney Island, as surely as the
rich migrate to Miami, teenago
blood is shed in Brooklyn during the warm weather.
辞”
"The summer is upon sold a cheerful ducelive in n white sweatsh up on the 89th precinct, close by the killing, "The festival has begun.”
On the second day of summer. 200 yards from the spot witere Rosado pitched over and died, Victor Stockton, a coloured 15- year-old, was set upon by a gang 20 strong in broad daylight. They were armed, with basebali bats and knives, Many of them are hardly old enough shave.
150 just stood
and watched
10
They drauged him to the middle of the rond. They kicked him and best him with buts. And finally one of them plunged a knife into his stomach. Then they dispersed as swiftly and deftly as they had come.
A crowd estimated at 150 stood
and watched them do it.
Out in Harlem, Santos Lopez, 15, was shot dead by three men
P
JEREMY CAMPBELL
reports: Hem York, Friday
And
gunning for his brother. the police have not yet solved the murder of Richard Zam- brano (also 15), who was stabbed 124 times recently before being cumped into the East River.
It's just like a business
It happens every summer. Yet this your the alarm bell has been ringing loud and long in the office of Rober! Wagier, the jovial Mayor of New York.
OF MURDER
The Phantoms prefer butchery to baseball
emergency. A quarter of 1 users who work on a commis- million dollars has been released sion basis--if they sell four baga to hire more youth workers to of dope they get the Afth one. mix with delinquents on the free. They're the middlemen.
So there's never much chance. of arresting the important men in the drug racket.
streets.
Police patrols are being strengthened," One hundred and fifty dances have been, planned to, divert young men from blood shed. And the youth courts will operate full time for the whole of the summer.
What are the gange? Their ties are jaunty or ironic-The Bishops. The Phantom Lords. The Red Hoods. The Mau-Mau. They are organised like a busi- ness,
with a president and a vice-president.
fessed to killing Nelson Rosado, Black Mike Pereira, who con
the vice-president of The Phantom Lords.
Somewhere in the hierarchy of most gungs there is an armourer, who docidos on weapons, and a war counsellor, who decides where and whom the gangs should fight.
I have my gang-lore from a city youth worker who has helped to bring a hundred of the gangs out into the open.
Drugs are sold
Crimes by young people, it has just been disclosed. have increased by Ave per cent. since 1st year. Between June, and September, 1958, eleven youths at street corners dled on the pavements of Brook- yn, Harles and the West Side.
"It is a separate sub-culture," This year, with the summer he said.
killing is them it is prestige.
hardly a shirtsoaking week old
In the last few weeks the situm tion
the total is already three.
INTERNAL REVENUE
has been treated
INEC
"You can claim these beauty treatments as a total los..
"Have you ever tried the simple exercise of pushing yourself away from the table?"
[*], såways refer to the Mrs as my first wild
11. keeps her on her toes."!
as
你
The motivation of a
illogical to us but to usually a matter of
"Dozens of teenagers take dope. They start on marijuana, then graduate to the hard stuff. heroin. To get them off to a Federal hospital when the local one is full is absolutely heart- breaking.
50 gangs stay underground
"The journey may take 12 have taken another shot of dope hours and by then the boy may which he hid in his coal and all his will to be cured is broken -we've lost him.
"Some gangs won't have addicts. They are considered a had risk. But most of them are crawling with them."
Fifty New York gings are still underground the youth workers have not started to
or empty houSES
uncover them. They are all armed, or have weapons secreted where they can be collected at a moment's notice. The racial breakdown is one third white, one third Puerto Rican, the Test Negro.
KENNEDY
... a fine record
KENNEDY
or NIXON?
Does it
matter
to us in Britain?
IN just a few days the race to the White House
will start in earnest. The Democratic Con- vention will meet to choose a presidential candid- ate. The Republicans will meet soon after.
There will be high doings at these Conventions. Delegates from each State will march down the aisle, with flags flying
and bands playing. There by A. J. P. TAYLOR will be endless speeches; streamers and balloons,
Perhaps some candidate will capture the Convention straight like to fight with 6sts, but like deadlock, the party bosses will Many of them say they would away, Otherwise, after public
at the national meet behind the scenes in disarmament
and decide level, they do not trust the rival smoke-filled room,
who the party's choice is to be. gangs to abide by the rules,
A CLOSED BOOK
'Social status'
for failures
same
At present it looks as though
NIXON
...courage and capacity.
I've just been looking at the which he sent secret reports,
Any objections to Kennedy do now published, not amount to much when close
to Washington. ly examined. And against them He was "defeatist" all right. Kennedy has a fine record of He thought we had a poor chance if the Germans in
pretty energetic, popular leadership.
Most good judges think ne is vaded. He thought before the ancere, which is quite a rare war started that the British quality in American politics. Government would sell out on the Poles if they possibly could.
"A boy was knifed to death recently during a squabble over who should use a certain swim- ming pool Sex is largely a pretext for a fight, since girls
the Democrats will choose Ken- are not often highly esteemed
nedy. And it seems pretty cer- But where did he get these by the gangs anyway. So is the
tain that the Republicans will Ideas from? He got them from race question, because coloured "The gang tradition is a
choose Nixon.
British leaders: from Chamber. fight coloured and white white. deeply rooted and primitive
In November one of these jum Lad Halifax and two men will be elected next Editor of The Times. Civilians sometimes get hurt, thing." said the worker. "For a
President of the United States, group who fail but that is usually because minority teenagers aim
Which of them will it be? I too puny to with a gun that school. who are
at
is not too good. In general only shine at athletics, the gang gives gang members die, because there them the social status they have Is no reputation to be gained been starved at," from killing an outsider."
have no idea. American polities are a closed bookt to me. But I understand something of opinion
I
think this
THE SOURCE
►
we
the
sident Roosevelt should force the Poles to give in.
OLD HISTORY
Now
sake. He cut through appart» ances to the reality beneath,
That's a good ́omen, Naom has his dificulties all right, He has had to learn political sense as he went along, which la rather like jumping in at the deep end and then learTI • Ing to swim,
He is saddled too with having been Vice-President in the Eisenhower administration, one Niren, surely he's of the feeblest and least sur not sincere? That is the cessful periods in all American almost universal
history. Yet I see in him the charge. too smooth, too alick courage and capacity to over- with his answers. He's all come these defects. things to all men.
He's
I doubt those charges too. Perhaps I'm a bit handicapped
YOUR CHOICE
of:
prominent public figure in any Take your choice. because Nixon is the only really Look at Kennedy and: Nixo
Either country I have ever talked to them, if elected, will do big privately
things. My real faith in Nixon comes from what is now a bit of old both have confidence and drive. They are both young. They
Neither of them will sit around,
If Kennedy senior had a history the Hiss case. poor opinion of this country,
In the early days of that after moaning about the decline of this is not surprising when we all the high-minded intellectuals Western civilisation.
that Hiss was A consider what he was told by thought
in this country, And I have a 1 was Chamberlain who told The public outcry at the high strong feeling that many people Hiller. It was Sir Horace W
Kennedy
couldn't beat the prospect of rate of juvenile delinquency in here regard
son, Chamberlan's confidential either Kennedy or Drugs are still widely circu- New York will strengthen the president with some alarm and agent, who proposed that Pre-
Nixon as lating among juveniles in New hand of those who say that the dismay. York. The hospital for teenage treatment of
drug addiction addicts, the only one of its kind should be a criminal matter, andang in both cases. Let us feeling is in, America, is on. North Brothers Island, off the southern tip of not the concern of the hospitals have a look at the objections. Manhattan. The other night
So for as Kennedy is con- But it may also flush out the every single bed was occupied. hidden 50," the warm-weather end the main thing held
It is very important they' For when the. "It's a pretty abysmal situa- killers who prefer butchery to is shots ver
Joe Kennedy, American. Am us. I have on impression that that Whittaker Chambers, his American people elect a
Pre- baseball and who, to judge by bassador here of the beginning some of the whispering cam- accuser, was a nasty man,
sident next November, they will said the youth worker the unwanted speed of Mayor of the Second World War, is paign against Kennedy comes
So he was. But he was also be electing To obtain drugs in New York Wagner's action, have given him supposed to have been
the leader of the you just need money.
a "de from men here who remember telling the truth; and Hiss was free world. the biggest headache since the teatish." He is said to have re- how they gave themselves telling lies. About the only man
That election. Is not "Pushers neil drugs at the scandals at City Hall.
some. ported that this country would away
in those who spotted this was Nixon. And
he don't do it for popularity's we can watch with amusement: far-away political scrap which dark days. [street corners. Most of them are
not stand up to the Germans.
from the sidelines It will settle the fate of all of us for- years to come.
tion."
--London Express Service).
Waikiki week-end
to his father
-even the grass skirts are phoney
Waikiki Beach,
Honolulu.
Non are the denizens of the
DUB this weird spot hotel at supose. a bunch
the world's capsuled as you might suppose. capital of the phoney.
INTERLUDE WITH
RENE MacCOLL
I found this staggering--and 1. noticed that my American friends were a hit uneasy when I'men- tioned it.
on the
to
breakfast but with a pineapple are merely overcharged rather nothing on were really trying to tell the story of a trip thrown in.
than killed.
with their dance, then they sure As unlooked for as the Union had me fooled, for one. Jack was the appearance of old- time British film star Dorothy
Oh yes, it is true to my thet Many words around here are Mackalli, still the possessor of a rum through twice, (Some of you he put in some work
he made Although we are relentlessly figure which should prove an may be too young to recall that report which
America. of her pre-war jest: "Where did you go If there is anything genuine pursued at all hours by wailing object lesson to some
your holiday?" "Baden left around apart from the Hawaiian guitar music which fellow guests. Wonderful tan for
But it was Baden." "All right-I heard that his team of speech-writers an open secret whock of the battlestin Arizona, even seems. to find an outlet in too.
fellow
you. the first lime.")
did most of the hard work. sunk by Jap bombers in Peard the banana trees, my Harbour, and still faintly visible guests seem for the most PITÍ
She's buying a house here and at low tide, it has so far elnded to be pince-nezed school teachers seems to be enjoying life quite a. your tastefully sport's shirted from Iowa and Kansas, their lot (Never forget that I come correspondent.
figures not seen to best advan- from Hult, dehling-Hull Ever tage in beachwear end bathing' heard of it?"g.
The muu-muu
suits.
Mercifully the muu-muu is all the rage for women this season. '
Nightspot
Aloha for now
GOOD THING
I'm sure that we ought, to stand close to the American people. It is a right and good thing that we should care that we' must care-who is going to be elected President of the. United States. But it is surely Call: wrong that we should have
to care so much.
The greatest service that we could perform to the American alliance and to the common cause would be to stand on our own feet rather more.
-It is a poor sort of ally, who- merely behaves like: a post relation, waiting for the rlol. courin to get him out of ting mess. Yet first- le: the, guiding principle of all our politisk. leaders. Conservatiye Labour.
VIRTUES TOO
What is the foreign policy of Mr. Macmillan? Leave it to the Americans.
What is the defence policy of: End it)? Leave it to the Amerl Mr Gaitskell di he can ever
tans,
We have no policy of our own in Europe. No policy at our own in the Far East No polley of our own over nuclear
Besides the mini-muus we have the mahi mahi (s form of edible dolphin), not to men- tion the poondos, which, bellove it or not, means hors-d'oeuvre.. Finally we have with 118
This place is so incredibly jure with in American jour-economic policy, except, to turt Walter Winchell, a name to con-weapons. Our present Govern
ment has not -even got a phoney, so gloriously unreal, so nalism and radio. Winchell. utterly bogus, that it develops a one feels, must have seen too off the tap at the first sign of macabre fascination of its own. many movies about fewspaper prosperity.
The only polley the Govern It is a bit like listening to men-he insists on keeping his ment has is to stay in office, Tar Baron Munchausen in top form hat on at all taxes, indoors es only policy. Labour will eve
you know he is lying but you well as out,
agree on will be to try to turn. can't help listening.
At the -Press confers them out. And even that looks It is a sort of wild caricature ence Winchell asked Hagely beyond the capacity of ta of itself it wouldn't really. pideapoles were plastic too, being jostled and forced off the -pavements. In the streets of Perfectly in character with
Tokyo. Amending is a little brochure the general atmosphere was the heald-hearty ughter en of
his colleagues interrupted to remark: “I hear it is happening.) in New York too, makin
As I clambered of the jet. The muu-mire la a sort of be
Well, this of course is the plane which had conveyed; flowered but bedraggled. house home of the hula, and there are the White House Press corps coat, brushing the ground as enough grass skirts (made of here from Seoul,, an elderly the wearer walks and Unus con- plastic) around to stretch from woman buased me firmly on cesting the ravages of too fre here to eternity. both cheeks, cried "Abba" quent. Indulgences in carbo (which can *mream either hydrates and chocolate malteds. "good morning," "good evening/
I had not realised it before.
but apparently the hule meins
orgoodbye and hung about Rather, unexpectedly amid the a lot more then what you might surprise me to find that the it was true that, Americans weca. Present Labour leaders
my neck a "lei" made of plastics, gaudy scene is the sight of the think it meant.
As nope, other then Predents Union. Jack; which forms the Eisenhower ared. Jolly Hagerty were in process of being Hawailen State flag.
Tim top right-hand corner of the similarly decorated, I accepted;
swinging can indicate "the story
LG BITULIóg with what awon 1 The Fa reminder That of a fishing trip, a great lover. could muster...
'Britain's, Captain Jammer, Cook maybe the death of a frequs? Howeyes, the grace, startad, to war mundlisid: Styczentrosta, a chiet,
Tug Who was las letras d hotel and discovered that I ne suppose ona, must: be, grafepal: The Forbidden, Village, this other prying nearly 29 days williut that: Betzten vindfors, nowadays, night," and
the, present.
International
Ah well, prey pardon me while Tdieplace my, les in order to tacide, some hot-oco-pods: me
Kennedy and Nixon have their faults. But, the have virtues tone
these twoʻzRIG