HIL CO 73 page 24

 Yacht Club or at the old Tampa Terrace Hotel, in the ballroom, when they got
 through with the meetings, they would set up these tables where you could
 gamble, play cards or shoot craps or whatever. Sam went in there and busted it
 up, and he was a member [Laughter].

B: What was his job when he did that?

C: He was director of the Beverage Commission, and you were not supposed to be
 serving beverages. You could not gamble where you got beverages, and they
 [didn't have a] license, I guess. Sam was a character. A good friend. He died two
 or three years ago. He played football. He was the captain of the football team at
 Florida about the same time that Julian Lane was, maybe a little before, and he
 had two brothers who played there and had a brother that played at Duke,
 Charlie Davis, who is now dead. That was an interesting sidelight.

B: You mentioned a crime commission that was working in Hillsborough County
 then. Did they accomplish much?

C: I think they at least exposed to the public what was going on. Up until then, you
 would read about it in the newspaper, not paying much attention. I am not sure
 whether this was the Junior Chamber of Commerce or the Senior Chamber of
 Commerce, probably the Senior Chamber. I think it was named the Crime
 Commission, and a lot of big people in Tampa belonged to it. The purpose was
 to see if they could not get rid of the name of being a big Mafia town. I am not
 sure what all, if anything, they accomplished except they did bring it to the light,
 so people became aware of the fact that maybe there was more to it than just
 the gossip and the assassinations. I am not sure whether there were any
 convictions or even charges were ever filed. I guess the newspaper would reflect
 that. That was a sidelight on Sam. Later on, when I represented the county and
 the Hillsborough County Industrial Development Authority, Sam was one of our
 chairman in a series of years, and he would have to go to New York to sign the
 bonds or to be involved in the closings. He would hold court when he went up
 there, and he would tell all the people in New York about the Mafia in Tampa and
 how his Crime Commission had busted it up, how as the director of the beverage
 department he did these things. He was a hell of a guy.

B: I guess for Tampa to have a reputation for being a criminal community was not
 good for selling industrial development bonds or recruiting industry.

C: Well, that happened long before the industrial development bonds, but it was not
 a good image for Tampa to have. I think the Chamber of Commerce and the
 Junior Chamber of Commerce both came to that conclusion. I think the Crime
 Commission probably served some purpose.

B: It was in 1954 that the city of Tampa was first able to sell its sewer bonds, to