By 1937, only four short years since the launch of the Policy Syndicate, the Policy Kings had amassed enormous wealth by any standards. The Jones brothers alone kept millions of dollars, reputedly in as many as twenty-five different banks, and acquired considerable real estate holdings including several multi-unit apartment buildings and commercial storefronts throughout Bronzeville. Plus, there was the beautiful 10acre family estate on Joliet Road in Lemont, Illinois, complete with a pond and tennis court; and four summer homes in Idlewild, Michigan, playground for the Black elite.
Policy had been good to Ed Jones and his cronies, and when they weren't paying off some cop, judge, politician, or otherwise working, they enjoyed the fruits of their labor in the grandest of ways. Their circle of friends did everything together from making the rounds to hot spots like the Ritz Club and the Grand Terrace Café, to vacationing in Idlewild and Havana. Often, Big Jim Martin, Mack and some of the other guys, would buy out two or three club cars on the Illinois Central and take scores of people on rail parties bound for Pittsburgh, California, or the Zombie Club in Detroit. Harlem was always a favorite stop for clubs like the Ubangi, 101 Club, Jack Dempsey's, spots along Seventh Avenue, and on some occasions the Cotton Club. In the case of the Cotton Club, where Blacks were not allowed as patrons, Ed Jones, Jim Martin and John Wooley, however, were among the few exceptions.
But there was no place like home where the boys could show off their flashy new cars, like Wooley's Lincoln Zephyr and Mack's 12 cylinder flamed colored coup; and the wives and girlfriends showed off their imported fur coats. And when they weren't at home they still enjoyed the same comforts as if they were, literally. Case in point; on one occasion Mack shipped his 12-Cylinder coup to New York so Jean could get around. "That kind of thing was typical in those days, of them [Policy Kings]," as one old timer recalled. There were always regular rug-cutting parties and pool games at the Jones brothers six-flat with regular overnight guests who happened to be among the greatest entertainers in the world; among them, the legendary Ada "Bricktop" Smith and Duke Ellington.
The principal connection between the Jones brothers and the world's greatest entertainers was Ed's wife, Lydia, and Mack's wife, Jean Starr. As a dancer on the Harlem and Paris scene during the 1920s, Lydia, Ed's second wife, knew everybody and everybody knew her. To that, her Paris roommate and lifelong friend was Josephine Baker. Ed met Lydia in Harlem when the two ladies were chorus dancers at the Cotton Club. Jean Starr was a talented singer, dancer, actress and one-helluva trumpet player. In fact, the great Dizzy Gillespie once noted that "Jean can swing with the best of them." She was widely known for her work as a revue singer in New York's Dolphin Cafe, as part of the musical cast of Raisin Cain and as a star attraction at New York's Club Alabam on West 44th Street. In Chicago Jean was widely known as a performer from the Entertainer Café and as a singer with Sammy Stewart's Orchestra. Up until 1929 however, after marrying Mack and retiring from show business, Jean is noted as the longest running performer in the Regal Theater since the place opened a year earlier. In later years, Jean toured with the famous all-girl band The International Sweethearts of Rhythm.