# Evening Star, 11 January 1929, page 22: Extortion charged to labor leader

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/clippings/clip-evening-star-1929-01-11-p22/

An Associated Press item from Detroit: the president of the Detroit Federation of Labor was held for trial on an extortion charge resting on testimony at the previous summer's trial of Charles Jacoby and nine members of 'what police termed the purple gang'.

Page 22 of the Washington Evening Star for Friday, 11 January 1929. The short item "Extortion Charged to Labor Leader," with the deck "Detroit Federation President Must Stand Trial, Recorder's Judge Holds," is credited to the Associated Press and datelined Detroit, January 11.

It reports that Frank X. Martel, president of the Detroit Federation of Labor, was held for trial on an extortion charge by Recorder's Judge Arthur W. Kilpatrick. The charge, it says, grew out of testimony at the previous summer's trial of Charles Jacoby and nine members of "what police termed the 'purple gang'" on extortion charges tied to a war in the cleaning and dyeing trade.

The page reports a charge and a hearing; it does not report an outcome, and this archive does not state one. "Purple gang" is the police label as the wire service gave it. The OCR text is noisy; the headline was read from the scan.

## Sources

- Library of Congress, Chronicling America: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/1929-01-11/ed-1/?sp=22
- Library of Congress OCR text of this page: https://tile.loc.gov/text-services/word-coordinates-service?segment=/service/ndnp/dlc/batch_dlc_lateef_ver01/data/sn83045462/00280600088/1929011101/0294.xml&format=alto_xml&full_text=1