August 1, 1935

EDITORIAL – The antivice crusade is well underway. It is moving faster than we had even dared to hope. It has been partially successful. It will be entirely successful. The Producer now awaits further tangible results. The narcotic addict prostitutes were still walking the streets. Their number apparently was not diminished by our broadside. But they must go, and they will go.

In the opinion of The Producer, the traffic in narcotics in Seminole, with its attendant evils, is the most deplorable condition that exists. As long as narcotic traffic is allowed to continue it will find new victims, ruin more young men and women. As long as its diseased victims are permitted to ply the prostitutes’ profession upon the streets of Seminole and the highways of Seminole county, there is untold danger to our youth. As long as the addicts are allowed to make headquarters here, we will have thievery, burglary, shoplifting and all manner of petty crime.

Street Commissioner Joe Altman launched a drive to get weeds and high grass cut on Seminole vacant lots and “lots that are not vacant.”

City employees who have not yet received any wages for their work the first half of July will get their checks within a day or two, City Clerk Herman Sullivan indicated.

Three Seminole liquor joints were padlocked on an order issued by District Judge H.H. Edwards. All bootleggers here will be raided and their places forced to leave town, it was announced by Assistant County Attorney Elery Criswell who asked for the places closed. Padlocked were Arcade Hotel, 214 ½ Main and owners and proprietors named were Grace Hall and Bonnie Wilson; Oil City Bar at 216 East Oak owned by Joe Irvine, J.E. Scivener and Sam Gorum; and the Club Bar at 209 East Oak whose owners and proprietors were named as J.L. Hibler and Carl Jackson.

Dopies and peddlers made a hurried dash for cover as rumors spread that a party of federal officers were in town for a series of raids. The dopies came out of hiding, however, when it was learned the federal officers were department of justice special investigators working on another case. Police Chief Jake Sims, who aided the G-men in their investigation, said they were trailing two of Al Capone’s former gunmen. Grace Hall was arrested on a liquor charge by county officers. She is now out on bond awaiting trial on a federal narcotic charge.