One of the most widespread forms of charity racketeering today—a form which is especially prevalent in closely settled Jewish communities—is the coin-box swindle.
Agents make the rounds of stores and apartment houses asking the occupants to take one of the coin boxes. There is the usual appeal to the charitable instinct, and many storekeepers and apartment tenants take the boxes.
Periodically, the agent calls and empties the box. Many stray pennies find their way into these receptacles, and it is astonishing to what large sums pennies can mount in a year.
It must be noted that many reputable charities employ this method of solicitation, and we are here concerned only with the avaricious racketeers who compose between thirty and fifty per cent of the coin box agencies.
SHOPKEEPERS GET A ‘CUT’
Some storekeepers are paid commissions to display the coin boxes in their stores. The agent takes a sizeable “cut,” the promoter takes even more, and the actual percentage that goes to charity is negligible if, indeed, the promoters keep up any pretense of contributing to the cause for which the money is donated.
Most of the coin-box agents are versatile and carry boxes and receipts for many charities. Occasionally an agent commits the error of giving a person the receipt for a different charity than that mentioned on the box. It is all the same to the agent.
A real racket has sprung up around the coin-box business, and the right to operate in certain sections is often closely contested by rival swindlers. In many cases, an agent sells his “route” to somebody else, and then the successor to the business takes up where his predecessor has left off, making his periodical visits to empty the boxes.
Some agents, to mollify the skeptical, forge permits to paste on the boxes. Others take advantage of the exemption from the necessity for permits offered by Section 199a of the Code of Ordinances, the much debated paragraph which exempts charities organized as religious corporations from the necessity of procuring Department of Public Welfare licenses.
WAR OVER TERRITORIAL RIGHTS
Violent feuds and, it is reported, one or two murders, have resulted from cases where promoters have had the temerity to “muscle in” on districts where other promoters have established their exclusive right to milk the public by the coin-box method.
Just how far charity rackets have gone toward being institutionalized is indicated by the fact that one enterprising person on the East Side opened a school for panhandlers. This person, who is well known on the lower East Side, also made a sideline of working as a “coxey” (high pressure telephone solicitor) for one of the racketeering charity organizations on the East Side.
Incidentally, he earned the title of “king of the coxeys.” His operations were halted some time ago by the District Attorney’s office.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
