9. The Overflow

Of every 100 residents of the metropolitan district, 45 live in the suburbs—over the line in Maryland and across the Potomac in Virginia. The take from these sections, in legitimate taxes and the proceeds of vice and crime, is so attractive that the city fathers of Washington have their greedy eyes on annexing this adjoining land onto the voteless District.

Almost everywhere else, unincorporated territory across city lines is a world apart. These county sections usually look different, smell different and are different from the city. They are bad or good, where people go to get away from the law, or go to get away from the lawlessness of the big city.

The border of D.C. is arbitrary. As the population of the capital grew, it spread. For all practical purposes, nearby Maryland and Virginia are as much a part of the city as any part of the city itself. Most of the residents of the suburbs work in the capital.

The entire area is really one municipality, though those living in Virginia and Maryland can vote.

There are no caste or social lines between the District and the suburbs. Society people may live in Washington, Virginia or Maryland. Residences of high government officials are spread over the three. The big wheels of the underworld are likewise scattered. The same overlords control the rackets in the entire metropolitan district.

The state lines provide gangsters with yet another safeguard. Extradition warrants are required to move them from one area to another. For some specific crimes, the authorities are hampered by the fact that no extradition is authorized. Smart lawyers take advantage of these false barriers. For instance, each day’s collection of lottery money in the District is moved into Maryland. Conversely, much of Maryland’s bookmaking take is deposited in District banks. That is all done on legal advice.

Technically, police officers in hot pursuit may cross state lines to make arrests, even for traffic violations. But few crimes are committed in the presence of a cop, and almost never any involving the upper echelons of crime. The satellite regions are remarkably free of Negroes, who prefer the city which they have all but taken over. That’s why the suburbs grew in size to such extent that Silver Spring, Maryland, adjacent to the District, of which outsiders seldom hear or read, is now the second largest city in the state.

The suburbs run the scale from swank sections where only those of great wealth reside to dingy squatters’ rows where moonshining, murder and mayhem are daily dillies. Most of the ritzier suburbs are on the Virginia side. Chain Bridge Way, Warrenton and Middleburg are peopled by the horsey set, where there are great estates lived in by possessors of ancient, honorable family names, as well as by the newly-made aristocrats of the New Deal, union officers, left-wing lawyers, five-percenters and State Department aides. Chevy Chase, partly in the District, but mostly in Maryland, is tony, too. So is Bethesda, Maryland.

But the great mass of suburbanites in both states are middle-class government employes who commute to and from work, play bridge, go to the movies and propagate.

As will be seen here, you can find almost anything in the way of crime or vice in Washington, but what you miss can usually be met in some of the Maryland suburbs when the heat isn’t on, especially in Prince Georges County, which, for its size, probably has more slot-machines, strip-teasers, resident hoodlums and general deviltry than any other place in the world—subject to a “clean-up” in progress at this writing.