Mayor defends Galveston on eve of crackdown

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]estifying in front of a legislative committee on June 25, 1951, the mayor of Texas’ “sin city” defended his much-maligned constituents with the curious logic, “The people of Galveston ought to be commended for not being hypocrites!”

The island was wide-open decades before Sam and Rose Maceo appeared on the scene just before World War I.  Barbers by trade, the ambitious brothers soon discovered there was a killing to be made in bootlegging.

During the Great Depression, the Maceos branched out into big-time gambling and ruthlessly eliminated the competition.  None of the slayings was ever traced back to the genial gangsters with one notable exception.