CARIBBEAN-L Archives

From: (Richard Bond)
Subject: [Carib-L] STX "A new children's novel "A Silent Witness in Harlem" by Eve Creary
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 13:01:28 -0500 (EST)

This is a new childrens novel based on the September 23, 1929
kidnapping of St. Croix born numbers game developer Casper Holstein. In
the plot the kidnapping is witnessed by a little girl. The incident is
recounted many years later by an old librarian who the narrator a more
contemporary girl realizes is the grown up witness.

Holstein was kidnapped by the Bernstein brothers who were lieutenants
of Dutch Schultz under their own initiative. They were out drinking one
night with a girlfriend when tey heard about how much he was making.
They pulled up beside Holstein who they grabbed and placed in their car.
They demanded the sum of $50,000 dollars. After holding him for several
days he was released when the money was collected. In 1929 Schltz felt
that the money in the game was small and difficult.

A few years around later 1931? as prohibition was drawing to a close
Schultz recognized however that booze was getting harder to control and
that a lot of his profits would be gone. In this changed set of
circumstances when asked to collect from one numbers operator by another
Schultz realized that there were better prospects and started his own
kidnapping and ransoming scheme.

What Schultz found out was that Holstein had two functions one of
which was organizing an army of runners. This was easily coopted by
Schultz as the runners were often caught and subject to arrest. Schultz
had better access to corrupt police and court officers. It is also more
time and labor intensive. The other function was lay off. hedging the
risk of a hit. A few times a year there was so much play on a single
number that if it came in it would bust the system. There were secret
individuals who accepted bets in the tens of thousands that had been
collected as nickels and dimes.

Layoff was a much more technical end and where Holstein had an edge
over the other pre Schultz bank operators. His previous ocupation was
chief runner for a commodities brokerage on Wall Sreet. It did not
require as much labor time or police exposure. Holstein continued doing
this for years after Schultz finally stopping with arrest in 1937. In
order to avoid Casper Holstein and his network of large rational
statistics driven speculators Schultz did as follows. He switched the
number from the last digits of the NYC US Customshouse daily receipts to
the numbers in the parimutuel handle which he could fix.

One of the book critics comments in the review that I read that after
the gambler is released he tells the witness what he feels about the
horrors of violence and the need for education. The critic says that the
gambler sounds unrealistically preachy. Well she must not have realized
that the statements were actually quotations from articles written by
the prolific Holstein .

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• [Carib-L] STX "A new children's novel "A Silent Witness in Harlem" by Eve Creary by (Richard Bond)