Satan's Circus

by Mike Dash

  PARKHURST’S DEATH Sloat, op. cit., p. 440.

  “THE PEOPLE MAY NOT ALWAYS LIKE US…TAMMANY IS NOT A WAVE…” Oliver Allen, The Tiger, p. 189.

  TAMMANY TRIUMPHANT Ibid., pp. 190–205; Richard O’Connor, Hell’s Kitchen, pp. 132–33.

  BOSS MURPHY AND THE GRAFT Nancy Weiss, Charles Francis Murphy, pp. 59–62.

  DEVERY AND THE CENTRALIZATION OF GRAFT Levine, pp. 294–96.

  “THAT’S GOT TO STOP…” Brown, op. cit., pp. 76–79; Sloat, op. cit., p. 151, has a different version of the same story. See also Lardner and Reppetto, op. cit., pp. 120–23.

  CHARLES BECKER’S PERSONAL LIFE New York World, July 30, 1912, and July 31, 1915; Sullivan County Democrat, Aug. 6, 1912; Sharpe, op. cit., p. 64; Logan pp. 31, 98, 314–16; Klein p. 395.

  BECKER’S LEISURE TIME Helen Becker, “My Story,” McClure’s Magazine, Sept. 1914, pp. 33–34; Sullivan County Record, Aug. 8, 1915.

  “LIKED BEING A POLICEMAN” Logan, pp. 105–102.

  4 . STUSS

  THE HOUSE WITH THE BRONZE DOOR Herbert Asbury, Sucker’s Progress, pp. 434, 451–54.

  YANKEES Glenn Stout and Richard Johnson, Yankees Century, pp. 3–12, 14–15, 49. Farrell and Devery did not sell out until 1915, when their team was purchased by the noted brewer Jacob Ruppert and a construction millionaire named Tillinghast Hudson for a highly satisfactory $460,000.

  “BY 1900…” New York Times, March 9, 1900.

  POOLROOMS, CARD SCHOOLS, ROULETTE William McAdoo, Guarding a Great City, pp. 206–8, 219; Luc Sante, Low Life, pp. 156–60, 166–68.

  FARO AND STUSS Asbury, op. cit., pp. 3–19; Sante, op. cit., pp. 156–60.

  “THE MEDIUM OF THE FIRST EXTENSIVE CHEATING…” Asbury, op. cit., p. 6.

  DAN THE DUDE AND NEW YORK’S CON MEN Sante, op. cit., pp. 166–72; David Maurer, The Big Con, pp. 161, 163–64. For Dan the Dude’s real name and involvement with Becker, see the New York Herald, July 24, 1915.

  “AN INVESTIGATION” New York Times, March 9, 1900.

  CANFIELD’S PROTECTION Henry Chafetz, Play the Devil, p. 331. Canfield, Chafetz adds, made $12.5 million in total from gambling before losing most of his fortune in the financial panic of 1907. He died in 1914 after fracturing his skull in a heavy fall in the New York subway. Ibid, p. 338.

  TIM SULLIVAN AND GAMBLING Daniel Czitrom, “Underworlds and Underdogs: Big Tim Sullivan and Metropolitan Politics in New York, 1889–1913.” Journal of American History 78 (1991), pp. 547–48, 550–52; Logan p. 61; Chafetz, op. cit., pp. 348.

  SULLIVAN’S HESPER CLUB LETTER New York Sun, July 17, 1912.

  SULLIVAN’S “GAMBLING COMMISSION” New York Times, March 9; World and Herald, March 10, 1900; Logan, p. 59; Chafetz, op. cit., pp. 341, 348; Sante, op. cit., pp. 172–73. Czitrom, op. cit., pp. 547–48, doubts the existence of the “Syndicate,” at least in the neat terms alleged by the Times. According to Jerald Levine, however, the commission was real enough but was more broadly based than suggested in the press: “Only about eight of the thirty to forty district leaders in Tammany Hall were members of the gambling combine. This clique was a closed corporation and ran things to suit themselves.” Levine, p. 305.

  SAM PAUL New York Evening Post, July 17, 1912; Logan, p. 69.

  ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN Donald Henderson Clarke, In the Reign of Rothstein, pp. 19–20, 25; David Pietrusza, Rothstein, pp. 2–4, 16, 28, 31–33, 55. Rothstein is generally accepted to have been the model for Nathan Detroit in Damon Runyon’s Guys and Dolls, and he was certainly caricatured as Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby.

  ROSENTHAL’S ANTECENDENTS AND YOUTH New York Sun and American, July 17, and New York Times, Aug. 17, 1912; Logan, p. 20, 53; Chafetz, op. cit., p. 398; Viña Delmar, The Becker Scandal, pp. 40–42.

  ROSENTHAL THE PIMP An affidavit detailing Rosenthal’s exploitation of his first wife, sworn by Dora herself and solicited by three gamblers at Becker’s behest, was published in the New York Morning Telegraph, July 16, 1912. “I never liked him,” Dora added to a reporter from the World the next day, “and when I married to him I was very young. He wasn’t good to me, that is all.” World, July 17, 1912. According to Sam Schepps, another East Side lowlife, Herman was notorious for trying to pry other prostitutes away from their pimps. “You know we fellows all have lots of girls and they are put out in districts and do the best they can,” he told the American of August 12, 1912. “Rosenthal was always a guy to grab other fellows’ girls, instead of working in his own field…. Rosenthal wouldn’t let the other fellows’ girls alone, but would try to take them for himself.” For more on this phase of Herman’s career, see also Klein, pp. 20 and 377.

  HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION IN SATAN’S CIRCUS Brothel owners paid heavily for police protection, and shakedowns and raids were regular and merciless. Only the most popular houses were highly profitable. On top of the fees paid onn opening and each time a new captain arrived in the precinct (see chapter 3), the weekly demand for graft could run as high as $150. Once all these costs were taken into account, the average madam held on to little more than 15 percent of her gross income. Rachel Bernstein, Boarding-House Keepers and Brothel Keepers in New York City, 1880–1910, pp. 121, 124, 135, 167; Timothy Gilfoyle, City of Eros, pp. 203–5, 207–8, 241, 254, 267, 291, 295; Ruth Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood, pp. 5, 92–93.

  DORA AND THE BOARDINGHOUSE New York Morning Telegraph, July 16, and American, July 20, 1912.

  ROSENTHAL’S APOGEE AND DECLINE New York Journal and World, July 17, and Tageblat, July 28 and 30, 1912; Logan, pp. 63–64; Arthur Goren, New York Jews and the Quest for Community, pp. 25–43, 134.

  “FLASHY, GREEDY, LOUDMOUTHED BRAGGART” Lately Thomas, The Mayor Who Mastered New York, p. 411; Delmar, op. cit., p. 4.

  SULLIVAN’S TROUBLES Thomas Henderson, Tammany Hall and the New Immigrants, pp. 4–5, 9–15, 42–46, 93, 99, 115–19, 121.

  “TOUCHINGLY GENEROUS” This story was related by Viña Delmar’s father, Charles. Delmar, op. cit., pp. 44–45.

  WILLIAM TRAVERS JEROME Richard O’Connor, Courtroom Warrior, pp. 70–71; Allen Steinberg, “The ‘Lawman’ in New York,” University of Toledo Law Review 34 (2003), pp. 753–80; Oliver Allen, The Tiger, pp. 203–4; Asbury, op. cit., pp. 454–55, 458–64.

  ROSENTHAL RAIDED “These raids,” noted the Times, “were the first that [Jerome] has undertaken in several years, and were suggestive of his old-time performances.” New York Times, March 21 and Apr. 16, 1909, and Sun and Morning Telegraph, July 16, 1912.

  THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE HESPER CLUB New York Times, Apr. 20, 1911; Thomas Pitkin, The Black Hand, p. 157.

  BRIDGEY WEBBER Shoenfeld story #123, Oct. 21, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1782, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem; New York World and Evening Post, July 17, 1912; Klein, pp. 18–21; Logan, pp. 11–12; Sante, op. cit., pp. 127–29. The spellings “Bridgey” and “Bridgie” were used interchangeably by the newspapers of the day; I have preferred the former, the version used by both the World and the Times. By the 1930s, apparently, Webber had taken to calling himself William; see his obituary in the New York Times, July 31, 1936.

  SPANISH LOUIS New York Times, June 9, 1912; Logan, p. 25; Patrick Downey, Gangster City, pp. 52–53. Louis’s picture appears in the Times. According to Asbury (a heroically industrious collector of gangland gossip, some of it mostly accurate, the rest much exaggerated), Louis worked for the independent gang leader Humpty Jackson, whose headquarters was an old graveyard on Thirteenth Street. Asbury, The Gangs of New York, pp. 246–47. Downey disputes Asbury’s account of Louis’s origins, accepting his claim to have been born in South America and stating that he had been an active gangster from about the year 1900.

  TOUGH TONY Klein, p. 190.

  WEBBER’S CAMPAIGN Bridgey was a Tammany district captain for some years and had close connections with several other members of the Sullivan clan—notably Larry Mulligan and Paddy Sullivan—as well as Little Tim. The exact dates of the majority of the incidents noted in this
section are not known; they occurred in the period 1909–11. Shoenfeld story #123, Oct. 21, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1782; New York Evening Post, July 17, 1912; Klein, p. 20; Czitrom, op. cit., p. 555. For “Henry Williams,” see The Report of the Special Committee of the Board of Aldermen of the City of New York Appointed August 5, 1912, to Investigate the Police Department [Curran committee], pp. 13–14.

  SPANISH LOUIS’S STICKY END The murder took place on April 1, 1910; Downey, op. cit., p. 53. For the circumstances, see New York American, July 18, 1912. Other sources suggest other reasons for it. The killing may possibly have been a consequence of one of New York’s gang wars, but Downey says the attack was ordered by Bridgey Webber in retaliation for the beating Louis had administered to him, which seems most plausible. According to Abe Shoenfeld, an East Side detective with a close knowledge of the criminals of the day, however, the gunman was Louis Rosenzweig, alias Lefty Louie, who “did the job” on the corner of Thirteenth Street and Second Avenue at none other than Rosenthal’s behest. Louie would later be convicted as one of the murderers of Herman Rosenthal; see chapters 8 and 12. Shoenfeld story #124, Oct. 19, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1782.

  5. STRONG ARM SQUAD

  “KILL A MAN WITH A PUNCH” Logan, p. 31.

  OVERDUE PROMOTION Ibid., 112, 114; Lardner and Reppetto, op. cit., p. 65; Sullivan County Record, Aug. 8, 1915.

  POLICE AGITATION AND THE TWO-PLATOON SYSTEM In fact, the problem with promotions was worse, and more complicated, than suggested here, since New York’s police commissioners continued to favor certain candidates for elevation and deliberately marked down other, apparently better-qualified men. Sergeant Jacob Brown placed top in the written examination and was rated “excellent” by his captain, and in seventeen years’ service had never been reprimanded or fined, but the commissioners graded him only “fair.” Says Jerald Levine, “The police commissioners graded those they wished to promote 100 per cent while candidates they did not know were uniformly and intentionally marked 60 per cent.” New York World and Tribune, Apr. 13, 1901, New York Times, Apr. 6, and Aug. 21, 1902; Levine, pp. 311–54; James Richardson, The New York Police, p. 282; Lardner and Reppetto, op. cit., pp. 120–23.

  “CAPTAINS AND SERGEANTS” Conversation between Becker and a reporter from the New York Times, reported in the Times of Aug. 21, 1902.

  “COSTS INVOLVED” It was estimated that more than 1,600 additional officers would be required to run three platoons. Levine, pp. 337–38.

  BECKER’S TRANSFERS New York Times, June 30, 1901, and Apr. 6, 1902; Logan, pp. 112, 119. “The high point of police demoralization,” notes Levine, p. 311, “was reached when Tammany began to extort money from policemen for transfers. Beginning in 1900, the officers had to pay $15 to $25 to secure a change of precinct. Policemen desired transfers because they disliked their posts or their commanding officers, or because they wanted to be nearer their homes. Some policemen were transferred frequently, while others were sent from one end of the city to the other, miles from their families. These men, naturally, were willing to pay to be transferred back. Although the rank and file complained often, they did not do so for public consumption.”

  BECKER’S PROMOTIONS Levine, pp. 40–41, 47–48; Logan pp. 114–15; Sullivan County Record, Aug. 8, 1915.

  BECKER, SCHMITTBERGER, AND SCHMITTBERGER’S POST-LEXOW CAREER “With Jews and other Lower East Siders,” observe Lardner and Reppetto of this Solomonic phase of Schmittberger’s career, “[he] developed into a kind of judge or godfather. Men and women would run after him, gesticulating wildly as they scrambled for an opportunity to seek his advice, secure his protection, or gain official forgiveness for petty offenses.” New York Times, June 30, 1901; World, July 17, and American, 31, July 1912; William McAdoo, Guarding a Great City, pp. 158–59;

  Lincoln Steffens, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens I, pp. 266–68, 277–79;

  Logan, p. 112; Lardner and Reppetto, op. cit., pp. 112, 125–26. 134, 139.

  BECKER ASSIGNED TO “GET” SCHMITTBERGER New York Times, Feb. 8 and March 21, 1903; Sullivan County Record, Aug. 8, 1915.

  BECKER’S RESCUE The circumstances surrounding Butler’s rescue remained controversial for years. A few months later, the supposed sufferer from epilepsy popped up in the New York press, having signed an affidavit to the effect that Becker had paid him $15 to stage the drama before an appreciative audience. The policeman, Butler added nastily, had struggled so badly in the water that he had been forced to help his “rescuer” ashore.

  The notion that Becker faked the entire incident is certainly worth considering. Dubious river rescues became so commonplace in the early twentieth century that in 1911 a score of patrolmen were taken out onto the water and required to explain, in detail, how they had effected the rescues they claimed to have made. But in Becker’s case the victim, Butler, withdrew his statement as soon as it was made. The next day he assured anyone interested that the incident had occurred just as the policeman had said, and Becker was able to produce three separate statements from Butler confirming that the rescue had taken place as described. He had been drunk when he signed the affidavit, the victim added, and he had been promised $200 for his signature. And who had paid him such a sum of money? None other than Martin Littleton, apparently, surely not coincidentally Max Schmittberger’s legal representative. New York Times, Sept. 22, 1906; Feb. 9, 1911; and July 30, 1912; Sullivan County Democrat, Aug. 10, 1915; Logan, p. 113. SCHMITTBERGER’S PROMOTION TO INSPECTOR New York Times, March 3 and 4, 1903.

  BECKER’S INVESTIGATION OF SCHMITTBERGER IN 1906 New York Times, June 30, July 24, and 28, Aug. 15, and Sept. 22, 1906; Logan, p. 113.

  BECKER’S SERVICE IN 1900S New York Times, March 19, 1906, and Jan. 5, 1907; Sullivan County Record, Aug. 8, 1915; Logan, p. 115.

  BECKER’S DIVORCE Paul and Letitia Becker’s marriage certificate from MBC; for Letitia’s comments, see New York World, July 30, 1912; Logan, p. 98; information regarding family tradition from Mary Becker, personal communication Nov. 20, 2004, author’s files. The World incorrectly named the Beckers’ son as “Harold,” an error picked up by other writers that has prevented his identification until now (see Epilogue).

  HELEN LYNCH “My Story, by Mrs. Charles Becker,” McClure’s Magazine, Sept. 1914, pp. 33–44.

  MRS. BECKER’S CAREER Helen completed high school and graduated from the normal college. Teaching was, nonetheless, neither prestigious nor well paid; education, indeed, was scarcely recognized as a profession at all. There were no universally accepted standards or qualifications, and conditions were all too often terrible. “A young woman with 56 pupils before her in her classroom,” said Charles Eliot, the president of Harvard, “has a task before her which no ordinary mortal can perform.” Matters were not helped by the fact that New York’s public-school system itself had only come into existence in 1896, and that although Superintendent John Jasper “was famous for his ability to recognize each of the system’s four thousand employees on sight, he never made a major policy recommendation.” Tammany took a hand in many appointments, and the turnover of staff was high. “Tenures were often short—men usually taught only until they found a better-paying job, and women until they married.” David Hammack, Power and Society, pp. 259–303.

  BECKER’S CIRCUMSTANCES Becker paid Letitia Stenson alimony from their divorce in 1906 until her remarriage three years later. New York World, July 30; American, July 31, 1912. For circumstances in the Becker household, see McClure’s Magazine, Sept. 1914, p. 36. For Becker’s salary, see the New York World, Aug. 28, 1912.

  MAYOR GAYNOR Lately Thomas, “Tammany picked an honest man,” American Heritage, Feb. 1967, and The Mayor Who Mastered New York, pp. 14, 21, 120, 134, 162, 170, 200, 202–26, 260, 290–91, 294–95, 314; Oliver Allen, The Tiger, pp. 217–20; Christopher Thale, Civilizing New York: Police Patrol, 1880–1935, pp. 890–91; David Nasaw, The Chief, pp. 223–24; Allen Steinberg, “Narratives of Crime, Historical Interpretation and the Course of Human Events: The Becker Case
and American Progressivism,” in Amy Gilman Srebnick and René Lévy (eds.), Crime and Culture, p. 72. For Gaynor’s long-term distrust of the New York police, see William Gaynor, “The Lawlessness of the Police of New York,” North American Review 176 (1903), pp. 16–19.

  “FOUR SQUARE BEHIND THE BILL OF RIGHTS” Gaynor, observed the Globe and Mail, “was a primitive American and really believed in the Bill of Rights. These things did not represent sentimental nonsense to him, nor did he regard them as impractical abstractions.” Cited by Logan, p. 88.

  ANECDOTE OF CHARLES CHAPIN Ibid., 24; James McGrath Morris, The Rose Man of Sing Sing, p. 202.

  “AS SOON AS I BECAME MAYOR…” Gaynor to the editor of the Daily Record, Long Branch, New Jersey, n.d. (1911–12), cited by Thomas, op. cit., pp. 428–29.

  “THE WAY IT WORKED…” Ibid., pp. 262, 411.

  NARROWING POINTS OF CONTACT Ibid., pp. 429–30.

  WALDO REPLACES CROPSEY Waldo’s wealth came from his wife, who was the widow of the coal magnate John Heckscher. New York Times, May 24, 1911; Thomas, op. cit., p. 353; Logan, pp. 22–24, 116.

  NEW SQUADS New York World, March 23, 24, 25, and 28, and Times, March 24, 26, and 27 and June 8 and July 9, 1911; Lardner and Reppetto, op. cit., p. 159.

  HISTORY OF SQUADS AND RAIDING McAdoo, pp. 86–87, 202; Herbert Asbury, The Gangs of New York, pp. 95–96; Lardner and Reppetto, op. cit., p. 131; Logan, p. 116; Allen Steinberg, “The ‘Lawman’ in New York,” University of Toledo Law Review 34 (2003), pp. 766–69.