The yeggs of yesterday

A little out of the normal pathways of my reading but I just finished Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough. Excellent

History written something in the style of Walter Lord, lots of carefully selected detail which give you a more intimate sense of the events, but without so much detail as to be overwhelming.

From the blurb:

Public Enemies is the story of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI, and an assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover's G-men secured the FBI's rise to power.

A number of observations from the account (which I found compelling reading).

* It reminds you of how recently America was primarily an aggregation of farmers and small towns.

* Interesting to note how heavily armed local law enforcement were.

* Interesting that in general, the bankrobbers had much better and faster cars than the police.

* None-the-less, cars were in general much more prone to breaking down at inconvenient moments than we are accustomed to today. The strides made in quality manufacturing are easy to overlook.

* It highlights the gritty reality that underpinned the romance and myth of John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, and all the other yeggs (slang for bank robbers). Sleeping in the back seat of the car for days on end, eating old crusts, no bathing for long stretches, etc.

* Bank robbers and organized crime had a peculiar relationship with one another. Sometimes supportive and at odds other times.

* The FBI was incredibly incompetent. Huge resources poured in to the war on crime but much, if not most, of the effective work was done locally.

* Not only was the FBI incompetent, but criminal. Kidnapping and torturing suspects for information, killing civilians in wild shoot outs, knowingly convicting criminals of crimes they had not committed because they weren't able to get convictions on the crimes they had committed.

* Municipal Corruption! Wow! It is quite bad now, but I had not realized quite how bad it used to be. Tammany Hall and their ilk; sure. But I thought those were the rare exceptions and it was primarily a large city deal. No. It wasn't a problem everywhere but it sure was a lot of places. Police force detectives serving as moles for bank robbers, bribes, etc.

* The distances the yeggs travelled. Rob a bank in Dallas on Monday, do a bank in Iowa on Wednesday, if its Friday I must be in Indiana.

A fascinating story.