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Occasionally hokum raids are made and sometimes the defendants are fined $25. Next day they are in business as usual. Honest policemen are afraid to make too many pinches in Negro neighborhoods for fear the pinkos will list them as “nigger-haters” and send their names up above—maybe even to the White House. One cop whose name we will not mention told us that one night after he pulled in a colored after-hour spot, word came directly from the White House to the 13th precinct station, in which the arrest had been made, to lay off. F.D.R. was President then.

Despite the maudlin tears of reformers about the horrible conditions existing in Washington’s “Negro Ghetto,” there are probably more new Cadillac convertibles being driven from its doors than from any others. Sleek, new, expensive convertibles of the flashier brands have become the sine qua non of Negro policy-peddlers and reefer-pushers here, as well as in all other major American cities. Respectable people are returning to the old-fashioned closed models for fear their bankers will wonder what they’ve been up to.