Justice Frederick E Hammer agreed that the members of “New York’s Finest” distributing the pamphlet were violating “a public trust” – but ruled that this was a “reasonable dissemination of opinion” under the US constitution, even if it struck at the heart of public confidence. “A new low in irresponsibility,” fumed New York’s embattled mayor at the time, Abe Beame, who sent the city’s lawyers into court to try to ban distribution of the pamphlet. They might have been even more shaken had they known that the men in casual clothes handing them these strange, badly set little pamphlets – with their funereal black borders and another death’s head leering at them inside next to the smirking wish “Good luck” – were members of New York’s police forces.
Tourists must have been baffled, if not horrified. “Hotel robberies have become virtually uncontrollable, and there have been some spectacular recent cases in which thieves have broken into hotel vaults.” And oh, yes: visitors should try “to avoid buildings that are not completely fireproof” and “to obtain a room that is close by the fire stairs”. They were also instructed to engrave their possessions with special metallic pens, to clutch their bags with both hands, to hide any property they might have in their cars, and not even to trust their valuables to hotel vaults.
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