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Albert Wrris 35
trouble, yau know, like you'd think with the different ethnic groups
wld be against each other. There msn't that m h friction.
Q: W t
about bootlegging raids You know, on stills.
A: Well, that ws later, you how, FBI, when Capone came in there. Lih
I told you, there ms that house of prostitution. There was just a lot
of than there, d that's =re it all cam in, see. Finally they just
got rid of that, the people just ddn't stand for that. 'Ihey couldn't
say nothing for a &ile there, when things =re rough. That's why they
were there, because they wre controlling wery-. Especially the
kfia bunch ms controlling it there for awhile. But after that, they
got them out of there and just done away with everything. Boy, they just
disappeared.
Q: k11, how did they get aut of there Did the FBI come in
A: Yes, the FBI came in. The law got a little better. The county law
got better. The sheriffs, they finally got thern out you know. They
wuldn't cooperate.
Q: W =re some of the better sheriffs that c- in Do you r-er
their nanrzs
A: Later years I don' t x d r too rmch, you how, who the better ones.
. . . I heard her causin, dm just died of cancer, he was the last sheriff
there right now. Richard Zarr , he ws my wife' s cawin. He just died,
and I don't know who took his place right now. kt he had been sheriff
but he died young. He ms only, I think, 52 when he died. He just did
three or fw mnths ago or so, Richard Zarr there, in Macoupin County.
Q: Tell me mre about Frank Fries.
A: I didn't laaw too rmch about Frank kies. I was young then, I didn't
pay too m h attention. I how that I've heard them say a lot of ths
that if they had four years of sheriff, that was enough. They'd be
pretty w11 heeled you how. That wis the camm thing there, and that's
about all I how. I how that there ms samething going on all the tim.
They =re getting their cut £ran a little bit of all this, mst of that
illegal stuff that ws going on, during the bootlegging days now. After
prohibition, you haw, then things changed there in Eknld altogether. I
was talking about *en it was still . . .
Q: Right. Until 1932.
A: Until 1932. After that that's when things started getting better.
In other mrds, there w s no mre of that going on there.
Q: Give me a little trip down through Benld . Describe it to me, dxit
it's like. *re do people live, where in Benld
A: Now or then