Satan's Circus

by Mike Dash

  SPECIAL SQUAD New York Times, Aug. 13, 1911; for details of the Car Barn Gang, see Asbury, op. cit., pp. 324–25.

  ACTIVITIES OF THE SPECIAL SQUAD New York Times, Aug. 13, 1911.

  RAIDS AND AMBITION Becker’s career as a raider ran from October 5, 1911, to the middle of July 1912. New York Times, Feb. 10 and 15, and May 9, 1912; Klein, p. 404; Logan, pp. 45–46, 68–69, 116–18.

  COMSTOCK’S RAID Steinberg, op. cit., pp. 758–59.

  NEW ACQUAINTANCES For Hawley and Terry, see New York Sun and American, July 17, 1912; Klein, p. 33; Logan, pp. 29–30; for Masterson, see Robert DeArment, Bat Masterson, pp. 1–3, 373–97. There is, DeArment points out, no firm evidence that Masterson ever killed anybody, though he was certainly involved in a number of fights and led a generally exciting life.

  POOR PUBLICITY, COMPLAINTS New York Times, Feb. 15, 1912; Logan, pp. 116–17.

  EXTENT OF BECKER’S GRAFTING Details of the allegations against Becker—most of which were made by his former collector, Jack Rose (see chapter 7)—and of his hidden bank accounts appeared in the New York World, July 18 and 31, and Aug. 28, 1912; New York Times, March 9, 1900, Aug. 1 and 14, 1912, and Oct. 9, 1947; Sun, July 31, 1912; Klein, p. 428. Details of the bank accounts emerged after searches conducted on the orders of senior banking officials across the city; according to Klein, p. 57, some of the money banked by Becker consisted of “withdrawls from banks whose totals had already been included in the district attorney’s calculation.” Becker put the total at $23,000, which he insisted came from savings and bequests. The protection Becker was able to offer apparently extended to disrupting the work of the other two Strong Arm Squads; the World of July 26, 1912, published a statement by Dan Costigan explaining the circumstances in which Becker had contrived to ruin one of his planned raids. For Honest John Kelly, see Herbert Asbury, Sucker’s Progress, pp. 432–34.

  BECKER’S HOUSE This property, the newspapers of the day reported, extended over no fewer than four lots. New York World, July 20, and American, July 21, 1912.

  WARNING SIGNS Anon., 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.

  “JUST A LITTLE LIEUTENANT” Logan, p. 50.

  ROSENTHAL’S DECLINE New York World, July 16 and 17; Post, July 16, 1912; New York Times, July 31, 1915; Logan, pp. 22, 63–67. For the total borrowed from Big Tim, see the affidavit of Sullivan’s assistant, Harry Applebaum, in Klein, p. 410. According to Becker’s statement of July 1915, Sullivan’s interest in the club actually totaled $12,500. Klein, p. 366.

  THE SECOND MRS. ROSENTHAL New York World, July 17, 1912; Viña Delmar, The Becker Scandal, p. 4.

  BECKER AND ROSENTHAL Rosenthal’s affidavits regarding this relationship—the details of which Becker naturally challenged—appeared in the New York World of July 13, 14, and 17, 1912; see also Klein, pp. 9–12. Logan, p. 43, points out the improbability that Becker had kissed Rosenthal, as was alleged: “The Elks’ Club ball had been a crowded public affair. At the table where Rosenthal and Becker sat were some two dozen other revelers, and all the tables were jammed close together in the big ball room. The drunken kissing scene Rosenthal described would have had hundreds of possible witnesses…. Rosenthal’s affidavit described Becker, a conspicuous man, as ‘waving to the crowd’ while he stood embracing his new friend. This would have been particularly reckless since the guests at the Elks’ Club that night included George Dougherty, deputy police commissioner and head of the department’s detective bureau, who undoubtedly would have caused immediate trouble for any member of the force making a spectacle of himself with a cop-baiting gambler. Yet no casual Elks’ Club customer apparently saw the painful scene.” Becker did not deny being at the same dinner as Rosenthal but said the pair had not sat closely together. It is certainly likely that any business conversation between the two took place away from the ball itself.

  BECKER’S FALLING-OUT WITH ROSENTHAL At the time it was reported—and later authors have generally agreed—that Becker’s falling-out with Rosenthal was occasioned by the actions of his press agent, Charles Plitt, who attended a Special Squad raid on March 14, 1912, presumably with the intention of gathering material for the press, and somehow contrived to shoot and kill the janitor of the house in question. See, e.g., New York American, July 18, 1912; Logan, pp. 263–65. When Plitt was arraigned and charged with manslaughter, Becker supposedly made a collection to raise money for his defense, forcing all of the businesses under his protection to pay $500 apiece toward the fund. It was allegedly Rosenthal’s refusal to pay this additional sum that led to the falling-out between the two. The story is not implausible; at least Rosenthal would have been in no position to pay such a sum. But there is no evidence that any defense fund was actually raised for Plitt and, as Klein, pp. 280–89, points out, the press agent was represented at his trial not by an expensive private lawyer but by a public attorney.

  RAID ON ROSENTHAL New York World, July 14, and Sun, July 24, 1912; Klein, pp. 10–11.

  6. LEFTY, WHITEY, DAGO, GYP

  ROSENTHAL’S PREMISES STAND EMPTY Viña Delmar, The Becker Scandal, pp. 4–5.

  ROSENTHAL, SULLIVAN, AND WALDO’S BRIBE Klein, pp. 410–11; Logan, p. 231.

  POLICE IN THE HOUSE New York Evening Post, July 16, 1912; Logan, pp. 8–9.

  ROSENTHAL SQUEALS New York Morning Telegraph, July 16, and American, July 17, 1912; Lately Thomas, The Mayor Who Mastered New York, pp. 411–12; Logan, pp. 10, 63–64, 69, 203–4.

  “NO HONORABLE MAN…” Louis Heaton Pink, Gaynor, p. 192.

  THE NEW YORK PRESS John Stevens, Sensationalism and the New York Press, pp. 96–103; David Nasaw, The Chief, pp. 96–103.

  “HEARST’S AMERICAN” This was the new title Hearst gave to the old Journal when a burst of patriotism was urgently required in the wake of President McKinley’s 1901 assassination. The murder had been committed by a deranged anarchist inflamed (Hearst’s rivals wasted no time in alleging) by the Journal’s rabble-rousing, left-wing editorials.

  JACK SULLIVAN Klein, pp. 181–82; Logan, pp. 203–4.

  THE WORLD The newspaper had begun life in 1860 as a religious daily and during the 1880s had been owned by the notorious financier Jay Gould, who treated it as a plaything and took it close to bankruptcy. It began to decline during the 1920s and closed in 1931. For the newspaper in Swope’s day, see E. J. Kahn, The World of Swope, pp. 126–30; Donald Henderson Clarke, Man of the World: Recollections of an Irreverent Reporter, p. 81; my quotations regarding the paper’s style are drawn from Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham, pp. 1151–54.

  HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE Clarke, op. cit., pp. 207–8; Kahn, op. cit., pp. 8, 22–23, 109, 115, 117–18, 138, 142–43; Allan Lewis, Man of the World, pp. 4, 6–7, 19–20, 24–25, 27–28. Swope’s apparently individual dress sense, incidentally, was aped; he copied it from Richard Harding Davis, who was previously the most celebrated newsman in the city, and who worked extensively for Pulitzer’s rival, Hearst. SWOPE AND ROTHSTEIN Leo Katcher, The Big Bankroll, p. 45; David Pietrusza, Rothstein, pp. 47–51. Donald Henderson Clarke, in In the Reign of Rothstein, p. 21, observes that “Arnold Rothstein loved to associate with newspapermen, who like to call themselves trained observers. He could always excel these trained observers. With him the power of observation was not a game—it was a matter of life and death.”

  “BEING JUST A LITTLE SMARTER…” Pietrusza, op. cit., p. 47.

  “ROSENTHAL’S RUINING EVERYTHING” Logan, p. 67. Dave Busteed owned a large gambling house on West Forty-fourth Street; Klein, p. 362.

  “THE TROUBLE WITH HERMAN…” New York Evening Post, July 15, 1912.

  SOME OF THE GAMBLER’S GROWING RANKS OF ENEMIES According to the testimony of several attendees, the possibility of physically harming Rosenthal was one of the principal topics of conversation at a picnic organized by the Sam Paul Association late in the first half of July 1912. Logan, pp. 69�
��70.

  ROTHSTEIN MEETS ROSENTHAL This is one of the murkiest and least well substantiated episodes of the Becker-Rosenthal affair. The story does not appear in contemporary press reports, and the earliest account of Rothstein’s involvement in the Becker case comes in a passing mention by Clarke, op. cit., pp. 30–31, a contemporary who nonetheless wrote seventeen years after the fact. Even then Clarke merely records that while his subject kept his name out of newspapers and the public eye throughout the period 1910–17, in common “with other gambling house owners, his name was mentioned in connection with the shooting of Herman Rosenthal.” The first detailed descriptions of Rothstein’s meetings with Rosenthal are those cited here, given by Katcher, op. cit., pp. 80–84, and dating from the early 1950s. Katcher was, however, active in the late 1920s, when Rothstein was still alive, knew many of the gambler’s acquaintances, and probably picked up the tale that way. His account is based on interviews with Swope, with Rothstein’s widow, and with Nicky Arnstein, the Bankroll’s longtime right-hand man, but it is undermined to an extent by the attribution of the moniker “Beansy” to Rosenthal (“Beansey” was actually the gambler Sigmund Rosenfeld’s nickname; this error, first made by Herbert Asbury, has since appeared in many books). Clearly the dialogue is, at best, approximate. Nonetheless I think it likely, given Rothstein’s known determination to keep Satan’s Circus gaming running smoothly, that something of the sort must have taken place. Pietrusza, op. cit., pp. 74–75, gives a version of the story based on Katcher and makes the same error with nicknames, suggesting he has no new source of information. Abe Shoenfeld, the private detective, writing only a few weeks after the incident, heard that Rosenthal had been summoned to see Tim Sullivan, not Rothstein, which is also possible. Shoenfeld story #14, p. 7, Oct. 5, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1780, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem.

  BALD JACK ROSE New York American, July 20, 1912; Shoenfeld story #122, Oct. 21, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1782; Klein, pp. 18, 20, 31; Henry Chafetz, Play the Devil, p. 401; Logan, pp. 41–42, 46, 75–76, 192, 204; Pietrusza, op. cit., p. 398 n72.

  “FINEST POKER PLAYER” New York Sun, Oct. 13, 1912.

  HATTIE ROSE Mrs. Rose, detective Abe Shoenfeld recorded, was “a very beautiful woman” who had “conned a sucker” into believing the child she and her husband had was his. This man paid Hattie $200 a month in child support, Shoenfeld added: “He would visit her and oftimes ROSE would be sleeping in one room while MRS. ROSE and the ‘sucker’ would be discussing politics in the other. So it is that ROSE always has an income.” Shoenfeld story #122, October. 21, 1912.

  “VAMPIRIC” Indeed, some of the less flattering photographs and drawings of Rose in the newspapers of the period make him look alarmingly like Nosferatu, the famous vampire in the 1922 silent movie of that name, as played by Max Schreck. See particularly the New York Sun for October 13, 1912.

  STOOL PIGEON In police custody Rose would indignantly deny he was any such thing. He was not believed. Klein, p. 32.

  ROSE AND BECKER This passage is based on Rose’s confession to the police, dated August 6, and Becker’s statement of July 1915 concerning his relationship with Rosenthal and Rose; New York World, Aug. 15, 1912; Klein, pp. 32, 59–62, 361–70. It is noteworthy that Rose’s account places the start of his relationship with Becker at a time when the lieutenant’s squad was engaged in anti-gang, not anti-gambling, work.

  DOLLAR JOHN Shoenfeld story #57, Sept. 28, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1781.

  ORIGINS OF NEW YORK’S GANGLAND Michael Kaplan, The World of the B’hoys, pp. 1–146; Tyler Anbinder, Five Points, pp. 156, 269–71, 284–89; T. J. English, Paddy Whacked, pp. 18–19. Virtually every author writing on the subject of organized crime in New York has followed the work of Herbert Asbury, whose The Gangs of New York, originally published in 1928, was the first great collection of oral traditions, newspaper reports, and gossip on the subject, but it is important to note that specialists in various areas have shown Asbury to be tendentious or plain wrong. The most recent guide, based in part on archival research but lacking references, is Patrick Dempsey, Gangster City, pp. 1–73. It goes without saying that virtually all accounts of crime and criminals in this period are anecdotal and likely to be inaccurate in important ways, hence my reliance, in this passage, on the more heavily researched and analytical treatments of Kaplan and Anbinder.

  “A BULLET-SHAPED HEAD…” Sante, op. cit., p. 221.

  “JUST A LOT OF LITTLE WARS…” New York Times, June 9, 1912. This story crops up in several crime books discussing the period, but is usually misattributed to 1917, when Eastman joined the U.S. Army.

  SUCCESSORS Downey, op. cit., pp. 11–12, 49–51. Asbury, Downey’s narrative suggests, was wrong to state that Sirocco and Tricker were partisans of Eastman’s. He was also incorrect to speculate that Zelig’s rise to eminence began as early as 1908; according to detective Abe Shoenfeld, his name was rarely heard, even on the East Side, before 1910. Shoenfeld story #14, Oct. 5, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1780. JACK ZELIG New York Sun and World, July 20, and American, Aug. 21, Oct. 6 and 7, 1912; Shoenfeld story #14, Oct. 5, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1780; Downey, op. cit., pp. 51–59.

  SELIG HARRY LEFKOWITZ Previous writers on the Becker case have almost always followed Herbert Asbury, who in Gangs of New York, p. 305, states, “Big Jack Zelig’s name was William Alberts. He was born on Norfolk Street in 1882 of respectable Jewish parents, and began his criminal career at the age of 14….” The author probably took his information from a contemporary newspaper, perhaps the extensive coverage of the American of Oct. 7, 1912, which reports many of the statements regarding Zelig’s career that later appeared in Asbury’s book. In fact, Zelig was born on Broome Street a full six years later than Asbury believed, on May 13, 1888, and was thus no more than twenty-four years old when he died in October 1912, as other newspapers of the time record (cf. World, Oct. 8, 1912). According to Patrick Downey, op. cit., p. 51, his parents adopted the name of Alberts, and detective Abe Shoenfeld’s report on Zelig confirms that the gangster called himself “William Albert” occasionally in business, probably because—like other Jewish men who mixed with those from different backgrounds—he saw advantage in the possession of a gentile name. Zelig’s background is discussed by Downey, op. cit., pp. 51–52, and his real name and correct dates are given on his tall and distinctively shaped gravestone, with inscriptions in Hebrew and English, which stands at Section 4, Post 396, Row 3, Grave 4, in New York’s most crowded Jewish graveyard, the Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn.

  ABE SHOENFELD Arthur Goren, New York Jews and the Quest for Community, pp. 79–80, 162–63, 169–72; Jenna Joselit, Our Gang, pp. 9–10, 25; Albert Fried, The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America, pp. 1–7. Shoenfeld’s reports began in August 1912, immediately after Zelig’s murder (see chapter 9).

  THE RISE OF THE JEWISH GANGSTER Goren, op. cit., pp. 3–4, 13–14, 25, 142, 145, 159, 161, 180–85; Joselit, op. cit., pp. 2–4, 30–34; Fried, op. cit., pp. 1–43; Rich Cohen, Tough Jews, p. 45; Robert Rockaway, But He Was Good to His Mother, pp. 101–12.

  ZELIG’S POWER Zelig’s power has been consistently overestimated in earlier accounts, most of which are based on Herbert Asbury’s telling of his story. For Asbury, Zelig was the principal gang leader in New York between the jailing of Monk Eastman in 1904 and his own death eight years later. In fact, Zelig was only sixteen years old when Eastman went to jail, features not at all in the New York press until the last twelve months of his life, was permanently short of money, and frequently resorted to picking pockets for a living—scarcely the actions of a powerful gang lord. Shoenfeld’s report on Zelig, compiled very shortly after his subject’s death, is my source for the statement that Zelig graduated from petty crime to the role of gang leader only in 1910. Shoenfeld Story #14, Oct. 5, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1780.

  MRS. ZELIG New York World, Oct. 8, 1912.

  ZELIG’S CAREER Shoenfeld Story #14, Oct. 5, 1912, pp. 1–12. New York Times, June 9, and E
vening Post, July 16, and Journal, July 17, and New York World, Aug. 17, 1912; Asbury, op. cit., pp. 305–12; Logan, pp. 170–71, 197; Downey, op. cit., pp. 52–59. INTERNATIONAL CAFÉ Shoenfeld story #6, Magnes Papers P3/1780. Thanks in part to the information supplied in Shoenfeld’s report, the International Café actually was raided on November 19, 1912. It closed down in August 1913 on the death of its owner, Louis Segal.

  ZELIG’S ALLEGIANCES For allegiance to Eastman, see Asbury, op. cit., p. 306.

  “CUT-PRICE OPERATION” Compare, for example, the “rate card” that Asbury, op. cit., p. 211, reports was discovered on the Whyo gangster Piker Ryan in the 1880s—which, while antedating Zelig’s by some three decades, nonetheless quotes higher prices for most “jobs”:

  LEFTY, WHITEY, DAGO, GYP One of the most peculiar contributions to the stock of information we possess concerning Zelig’s confederates comes from “Datas,” a noted British vaudeville performer whose act revolved around displays of startling feats of memory. Datas (born W. J. M. Bottle) was an otherwise-ordinary man (“He has little more education than the average laborer [and] is scarcely more articulate,” one journalist who knew him wrote) possessed of a freakishly retentive memory for facts, figures, and dates. He had been working music halls on both sides of the Atlantic since 1901—when, according to the biographical sketch penned by Ricky Jay in Learned Pigs Fireproof Women (New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1986), pp. 98–101, he “went to work as usual, stoking the furnace at the Crystal Palace Gas Works, and that evening, without so much as a thought of embracing show business, he walked onto the stage of the Standard Music Hall, Victoria. He was a legitimate overnight sensation.” According to his autobiography, published two decades later, Datas was in New York around the beginning of 1912 and carrying $2,000 earned during his most recent engagement in the city. He was, he writes, in the habit of visiting Considine’s infamous saloon (see chapter 8):