RACKETS VIA ROCKETS

Gold, platinum, diamonds and other precious stuff are as plentiful on
Mars as hayfever is on Earth in August.

When the gangsters lamped the loot, their greedy eyes and greasy
fingers twitched, and when a hood's eyes and fingers twitch, watch
out; something is twitching.

The locals were completely honest. They were too dumb to be thieves.
The natives were not acquisitive. Why should they be when gold was so
common it had no value, and a neighbor's wife so ugly no one would
covet her?

This was a desperate situation, indeed, until one of the boys from
East St. Louis uttered the eternal truth: "There ain't no honest man
who ain't a crook, and why should Mars be any different?"

The difficulty was finding the means and method of corruption. All the
cash in Jake Guzik's strong box meant nothing to a race of characters
whose brats made mudpies of gold dust.

The discovery came as an accident.

The first Earthman to be eliminated on Mars was a two-bit hood from
North Clark Street who sold a five-cent Hershey bar with almonds to a
Martian for a gold piece worth 94 bucks.

The man from Mars bit the candy bar. The hood bit the gold piece.

Then the Martian picked up a rock and beaned the lad from the Windy
City. After which the Martian's eyes dilated and he let out a scream.
Then he attacked the first Martian female who passed by. Never before
had such a thing happened on Mars, and to say she was surprised is
putting it lightly. Thereupon, half the female population ran after
the berserk Martian.

When the organization heard about this, an investigation was ordered.
That is how the crime trust found out that there is no sugar on Mars;
that this was the first time it had ever been tasted by a Martian;
that it acts on them like junk does on an Earthman.

They further discovered that the chief source of Martian diet
is--believe it or not--poppy seed, hemp and coca leaf, and that the
alkaloids thereof: opium, hasheesh and cocaine have not the slightest
visible effect on them.

Poppies grow everywhere, huge russet poppies, ten times as large as
those on Earth and 100 times as deadly. It is these poppies which have
colored the planet red. Martians are strictly vegetarian: they bake,
fry and stew these flowers and weeds and eat them raw with a goo made
from fungus and called _szchmortz_ which passes for a salad dressing.

Though the Martians were absolutely impervious to the narcotic
qualities