Satan's Circus

by Mike Dash

  “TO LET BECKER BEAR THE BRUNT OF THINGS…” Logan, p. 80.

  STRONG ARM SQUAD BROKEN UP New York American, July 20, 1912.

  “STERN LINES IN HIS FACE…” Ibid.

  SUPPOSED SUICIDE Logan, p. 78.

  ADVISED NOT TO TESTIFY New York Sun, July 26, 1912.

  RED QUEEN New York Tribune, July 19, 1912.

  NEW PRECINCT New York World, July 23, 1912.

  “ROUNDSMAN’S WORK” New York American, July 23, 1912.

  DOUGHERTY DISCUSSES CHARGES New York Sun, July 21, and American, July 29, 1912.

  COSTIGAN TESTIFIES New York World and Globe and Mail, July 26, 1912.

  SHAPIRO’S MEMORY IMPROVES New York World and Sun, July 20, 22, and 26, 1912.

  “BIG FISH, SMALL FISH” New York World, July 26, 1912; Klein, pp. 38–39.

  FRAME UP DISCUSSED New York World, July 30, 1912; Klein, pp. 182–83, citing Becker trial transcript (evidence of Jack Sullivan); Logan, p. 205. According to Logan, the chief witness to the conversation of the imprisoned gamblers was Bridgey Webber’s attorney, Harford Marshall, who resigned from the case in consequence. In Marshall’s later recollection, Webber’s comment had been, “If what he wants is Becker, we’ll give him to him on a platter.” Logan, pp. 125–26.

  SLEEPING IN THE SUITE New York Times, July 30, 1912.

  BECKER COMPLETES WORK ON HIS HOUSE “My Story, by Mrs. Charles Becker,” McClure’s Magazine, Sept. 1914, pp. 34, 36.

  “POUNDING ONE AGAINST THE OTHER…” New York Sun, July 30, 1912.

  GRAND JURY ASSEMBLED New York American and World, July 30, 1912.

  GAMBLER’S TESTIMONY Rather unusually, given Whitman’s avid courting of publicity, the gamblers’ statements to the grand jury were made in a closed session and the DA refused to divulge the details of their testimony. Reporters for the various dailies experienced little difficulty in reconstructing what was said, however. New York Times, World, and Sun, July 30, 1912.

  SAM PAUL RELEASED Paul would play no further part in Becker’s story or the coming trials, although, as Andy Logan pointed out after a long study of all the depositions in the case, “he had taken part in the last minute planning in Bridgey Webber’s poker rooms and probably had delivered three of the gunmen [Gyp the Blood, Lefty Louie, and Whitey Lewis] there.” Logan, p. 125.

  BECKER ARRESTED New York Times, World, American, and Sun, July 30, 1912. WEATHER CONDITIONS AT THE CRIMINAL COURT New York Times, July 30, 1912.

  BECKER ARRAIGNED FOR MURDER Ibid. and World and Herald, July 30, and American, July 30 and 31, 1912.

  9. TOMBS

  DESCRIPTION OF THE TOMBS The original Tombs building, with its Egyptian columns, was torn down in 1897 and replaced by an equally forbidding structure. Meyer Berger, The Eight Million, pp. 23–35, 51–53, 57; Logan pp. 100–101, 104. Problems with settling, endemic to both prisons, were not solved until well after Becker’s time, when a third structure was erected on the site and concrete caissons, extending to bedrock 140 feet below the ground, were let into the foundations.

  HELEN BECKER AND THE TOMBS “My Story, by Mrs. Charles Becker,” McClure’s Magazine, Sept. 1914, pp. 34–36.

  BECKER’S VIEW OF THE TOMBS Logan, p. 138.

  POLICE SHOCKED New York American and Times, July 30, 1912.

  WALDO AND DOUGHERTY HEAR THE NEWS New York Tribune, July 30 and 31, 1912; Logan, p. 128.

  DAGO FRANK CAPTURED New York Sun and World, July 26, 1912. This arrest took place on July 25, four days before Becker’s arraignment. According to the Sun, the police had been following Rose Harris since the night of the murder. The Times and other papers agreed that the arrest was the result of a tip. Cirofici’s brother and another man were also in the room and were both detained as material witnesses.

  MURDER OF VERELLA New York Times, July 31, 1912.

  CAPTURE OF WHITEY LEWIS New York World, Aug. 2, 3, and 4, 1912. According to Lewis’s improbable tale, he was actually waiting at the railway station for a New York train so he could return to the city and give himself up.

  “WHEN THAT EXTRA…” Vina Delmar, The Becker Scandal, p. 76.

  THE HUNT FOR GYP THE BLOOD AND LEFTY LOUIE New York World, Aug. 2, 4, 10, and 17, and Times, Aug. 25, 1912; Logan, pp. 132, 163.

  CAPTURE OF GYP AND LOUIE New York World and Sun, Sept. 15, 1912; Patrick Downey, Gangster City, pp. 60–61.

  WHITMAN ACCUSES Klein, p. 82.

  ZELIG TRACED New York Times, Aug. 20 and 21, 1912.

  ZELIG BEFORE THE GRAND JURY New York Sun, Aug. 21, 1912; Klein, pp. 82–85; Logan, pp. 136–37.

  LEAKS Klein, p. 93–94.

  THREATS Klein, p. 57–58. Both men firmly believed that the threats against them had originated with Becker, though the lieutenant’s partisans argued that they could just as easily have come from other gamblers.

  BALD JACK’S CONFESSION New York World, Aug. 4, 11, and 15, 1912; Klein, pp. 59–71.

  CORROBORATING WITNESSES Allen Steinberg, “The Becker Case and American Progressivism,” in Amy Gilman Srebnick and René Lévy (eds.), Crime and Culture, pp. 79–80.

  SAM SCHEPPS New York American, Aug. 12, and World, Aug. 13 and 14, 1912; Shoenfeld story #125, Oct. 21, 1912, Magnes Papers P3/1782; Klein, pp. 72–79.

  “MURDER PAYMASTER” Logan, pp. 156, 161.

  IN THE WEST SIDE PRISON New York American, July 31, Aug. 1, and Nov. 21, 1912; Klein, pp. 86–87; Logan, pp. 129, 155, 218.

  JAMES L. SULLIVAN AND MAX STEUER New York World, July 30, 1912; Klein, p. 79. Steuer had won an acquittal for the owners of the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist factory when they were tried for causing the deaths of so many of their workers in the dreadful fire of 1911 (thus proving, as Andy Logan tartly observed, “that the deaths of 145 young garment workers were all their own fault.” Logan, pp. 124–25). The district attorney at the time, of course, was Whitman.

  “GREATEST CRIMINAL LAWYER OF HIS TIMES” New York Times, Aug. 22, 1940.

  BECKER’S LAWYERS New York World and American, Aug. 6, 1912; Lloyd Stryker, The Art of Advocacy, pp. 40–41, 163; Logan, pp. 156–57.

  HELEN BECKER HELPS HER HUSBAND New York World, Aug. 28, 1912; “My Story, by Mrs. Charles Becker,” McClures Magazine, Sept. 1914, p. 36; Viña Delmar, The Becker Scandal, pp. 96–98, 111–12; Logan, p. 118. Helen Becker, Delmar added, contrasted vividly in her mind with Lillian Rosenthal, whom her father liked to defend (“There are women who are not given the chance to fight for their husbands. Who knows what Lillian would have done for Herman?”). “My private opinion,” she wrote, “was that Lillian would have wept and fainted and been totally inept at the desperate business of trying to save Herman’s life.”

  “THEY HAVE NO ONE TO TESTIFY…” Testimony of James Hallen in Becker’s first trial. Hallen, a convicted swindler, added that Becker continued: “After this sensation is passed over, they will give me a pension for killing that damn crook Rosenthal.” Whatever Hallen’s believability, the comments he attributed to Becker regarding the unreliability of criminals’ evidence reflect the lieutenant’s known opinion. That Becker would have gone on to openly confess to a murder he had just pleaded not guilty to, while sitting in prison, within earshot of numerous other prisoners, strikes me as considerably less likely. Hallen’s reliability as a witness was certainly undermined by the manner in which he gave his evidence, reading notes he said he jotted down at the time on a sheet of yellow legal paper. Under cross-examination, Hallen—a disbarred lawyer by then serving a four-year sentence for forgery—said he could not remember how he had come by such a pad. The judges in the court of appeals were especially scathing about his testimony. Klein, pp. 173–74.

  MURDER BY PROXY, TWICE REMOVED This was one of the chief criticisms of the appeals court judges who looked at Becker’s original conviction; see 210 NY 274.

  FRANK MOSS Steinberg, op. cit., p. 78.

  GOFF’S PROBE OF THE BECKER LETTERS; OTHER COMMITTEES Logan, p. 163; Anon (ed.), “Report of the Citizens’ Committee Appointed at the Cooper Union Mee
ting, August 12, 1912,” pp. 1–34.

  CURRAN COMMITTEE Henry Curran, Pillar to Post, pp. 152–54, 162–74; Steinberg, op. cit., p. 79.

  GOFF APPOINTED TO TRY THE CASE New York Times, Aug. 16, 1912; Logan, p. 159.

  LIFE AND REPUTATION OF JOHN GOFF New York Times, Nov. 10, 1924; Dictionary of American Biography 7, 359–60; Stryker, op. cit., pp. 66–70; Logan, pp. 157–60; Steinberg, op. cit., p. 78.

  “THE MOST ODIOUS VICE…” Stryker, op. cit., p. 67. The phrase is from Macaulay.

  EARLY TRIAL DATE New York Times, Sept. 6, 1912; Klein, pp. 92–93.

  “PROBABLY THE SHORTEST…” Logan, p. 160.

  VIÑA DELMAR’S FAMILY Delmar, op. cit., pp. 96–99, 112–13.

  COUPE AND MASTERSON Logan, pp. 160–63.

  ZELIG’S ANTICIPATED TESTIMONY New York Times, American, World, and Sun, Oct. 7 and 8, 1912; Logan, pp. 171–73. Whitman later conceded that he had been “misquoted” in claiming Zelig as his witness. He had meant—he said—to imply he expected to obtain useful evidence from the gangster on cross-examination, if he appeared for the defense. Whether a man in Zelig’s peculiar position was really likely to give honest testimony regarding his ability and willingness to hire out gunmen to commit murder was not mentioned by the advocates on either side.

  ZELIG’S DEATH, DAVIDSON’S GUN The gangster survived the shooting for a few minutes and actually died in an ambulance on his way to the hospital. New York American, Times, World, and Sun, Oct. 6, 1912; Shoenfeld story #14, Oct. 5, 1912, pp. 14–15, Magnes Papers P3/1780; Downey, op. cit., pp. 61–64.

  CONTENTS OF ZELIG’S POCKETS New York Sun, Oct. 6, and Times, Oct. 8, 1912.

  HORSE POISONER Jenna Joselit, Our Gang, p. 36; Albert Fried, The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America, p. 35.

  ZELIG’S FUNERAL Shoenfeld story #14, Oct. 5, 1912, pp. 16–17, Magnes Papers P3/1780; New York Times, Oct. 8, 1912; Delmar, op. cit., p. 113. Delmar is the source for “forty coaches” Shoenfeld lists details of the hirers of thirty-five of them

  DAVIDSON’S SENTENCE New York American, Oct. 31, 1912.

  10. FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

  WHITMAN’S OPENING STATEMENT New York Evening Post, Oct. 10, and Times and World, Oct. 11, 1912; Logan, p. 178.

  DESCRIPTION OF THE COURT HOUSE Frances Nevins, “Mr. Tutt’s Jurisprudential Journey: The Stories of Arthur Train,” in Legal Studies Forum 19 (1995), p. 59. The quotation is an extract from one of the “Ephraim Tutt” short stories Train turned to writing after a career as an assistant district attorney in the first decade of the twentieth century.

  NEWSPAPER COVERAGE Allen Steinberg, “The Becker-Rosenthal Murder Case: The Cop and the Gambler,” in Frankie Bailey and Steven Chermak (eds.), Famous American Crimes and Trials, p. 257.

  BECKER ON THE MORNING OF THE TRIAL Jonathan Root, The Life and Bad Times of Charlie Becker, p. 127.

  BECKER’S VIEWS ON JURY SELECTION New York Sun, Oct. 8, 1912.

  JURY SELECTION Ibid. and World, Oct. 8, 1912.

  “A REPUTATION FOR BEING WILLING…” Logan, p. 176.

  GOFF URGES SPEED Lloyd Stryker, The Art of Advocacy, p. 68; Nevins, op. cit., p. 60.

  EVENING QUESTIONING New York Sun and Evening Post, Oct. 13, 1912; Klein, pp. 134–41; Logan, pp. 191–94.

  TEMPERATURE, FANS New York Times, World, and Sun, Oct. 13, 1912.

  “HAVE THE SHADES DRAWN LOW” Stryker, op. cit., p. 66.

  “SAINT-LIKE SON OF A BITCH” Logan, p. 173.

  “BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ” Ibid.

  GOFF BIOGRAPHY For Goff’s character and career, see New York Evening Post, Feb. 1, 1913, and Times, Nov. 10, 1924; Dictionary of American Biography pp. 7, 359–60.

  “A SUFFERER FROM ULCERS…” Logan, p. 184.

  “MR. MCINTYRE WAS MANY TIMES OVER-RULED” New York Sun, Oct. 8, 1912. THREATENED WITH ARREST Ibid.

  BECKER’S APPEARANCE Ibid. and New York American, Oct. 8, 1912.

  “SMALL, CHARMINGLY FEMININE AND CHEERY” New York Tribune and World, Oct. 11, 1912.

  HELEN MOVED “My Story, by Mrs. Charles Becker,” McClure’s Magazine, Sept. 1914, p. 36.

  FIRST WITNESSES New York Times, Oct. 11, 1912; Klein, p. 97–99. “The writer,” Klein adds, speaking of himself, “met Krause many times after Becker’s second trial…and wouldn’t believe him under oath.”

  PAID $2,5000 New York Times and American, Oct. 12, 1912.

  BECKER NOT MENTIONED New York Sun, Oct. 12, 1912.

  THE FOUR GUNMEN PARADED Logan, pp. 181–82. Jack Sullivan was also included in this parade; Klein, pp. 98, 101.

  “WILD ANIMAL” New York World, Oct. 12, 1912.

  “THIS IS A COURT OF JUSTICE…” Klein, p. 221.

  MORRIS LUBAN New York American, Globe and Mail, and Herald, Oct. 12, 1912; Klein, pp. 101–11. Whitman proved better able to accommodate the Luban brothers than had McIntyre and Becker. The pair were released from prison after the trial concluded and saw the charges against them dropped. Years later, in the 1960s, Andy Logan tracked down the junior member of Whitman’s staff who had been sent over to the Essex County Jail to interview the Luban brothers. “They were the very worst looking men I ever saw,” the man—by then in his eighties—told Logan. “They were abominable. They told me their awful stories, and I believed every word of them. How could I have believed such things? I went back and told Whitman. He was older and I think now he should have known better, but he seemed to have believed them, too. Looking back on it now, it all seems incredible.” Logan, pp. 182–83.

  ROSE IN COURT New York World, Oct. 13, 1912; Logan, p. 186.

  “SHAVEN TO THE BLOOD” New York Times, Oct. 13, 1912.

  “DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU WANT SOMEONE CROAKED?” Klein, p. 118.

  “THE FELLOW IS GETTING DANGEROUS…” Ibid., pp. 119, 121, 124.

  FEATURES OF ROSE’S EVIDENCE Ibid., pp. 118–19, 120, 123.

  HARLEM CONFERENCE Ibid. pp. 125–26.

  “HALF ON HIS FEET” Logan, p. 187.

  “LIKE THAT IN WHICH MACBETH…” Stryker, op. cit., p. 69.

  MURRAY HILL BATHS This piece of evidence is especially problematic, as Andy Logan points out, because the timings Rose gave for the meeting in court cannot be reconciled with those the gambler gave in his evidence before the grand jury some weeks earlier. In his grand-jury testimony, Rose said Becker had met him at the Murray Hill Baths before going to the station house at West Forty-seventh Street. In Goff’s courtroom he amended this statement and said Becker had gone to the station house first. Logan, pp. 190–91.

  “DON’T WORRY, JACK…” Klein, p. 131.

  BECKER’S EXHORTATIONS Ibid., pp. 120, 124.

  “GLOATING OVER THE BODY…” New York Times, Oct. 13, 1912.

  “NEARLY EVERY MAN AND WOMAN…” New York Sun, Oct. 13, 1912.

  “EVERY FEW MOMENTS…” Logan, p. 187.

  “AT HALF–PAST TWO…” Stryker, op. cit., pp. 68–70.

  ROSE’S OBSTRUCTIVENESS Logan, pp. 192–93.

  “BALD-HEADED PIMP” Klein, p. 135.

  “THE JUDGE LEANED DOWN…” Logan, p. 191.

  “VISIBLY BEGAN TO LOSE HIS TRAIN OF THOUGHT” “Mr. McIntyre’s questions,” the reporter from the Sun observed, “began apparently to drift back over much-covered ground. New York Sun, Oct. 13, 1912.

  “I AM TOTTERING…” Ibid.

  “DIDN’T YOU GO DOWN…” New York Times, World, and American, Oct. 13, 1912; Klein, pp. 138–39.

  “ONE OF JUSTICE GOFF’S CURIOUS ATTRIBUTES…” Logan, p. 193.

  “COLD, CALCULATED, DELIBERATE OPPRESSION Stryker, op. cit., p. 70.

  “YOUR HONOR…” New York Sun, Oct. 13, 1912.

  “NO GOOD REASON…” Stryker, op. cit., p. 70. McIntyre, added Swope, who watched proceedings from the press box, “was almost a wreck…. It was physically impossible for the lawyer to continue.” New York World, Oct. 13, 1912.

  GOFF ENDS LUBAN’S CROSS-EXAMINATION New York Herald, Oct. 12, 1912; Klein, p. 100.

  ROSE STANDS DOWN
Most of the assembled press believed that the gambler had passed his test. “Jack Rose,” wrote the New York Sun (Oct. 13, 1912), “told his whole story on the witness stand yesterday and last night and the defense failed to catch him in a lie. Without hesitating, without stopping to weigh his words, without the slightest emotion, he swore that Becker ordered and contrived the murder of Herman Rosenthal.”

  GOFF’S BIAS Klein, pp. 220–32; Stryker, op. cit., p. 69; Logan, pp. 174, 204–5. The strictures cited in the text are drawn from the criticisms of the court of appeals in People v. Becker, 210 NY, p. 289.

  FRANK MOSS ASKS MCINTYRE’S QUESTIONS FOR HIM Klein, pp. 193–94; Logan, p. 205.

  “WEBBER’S STORY WAS AS COLD…” New York Sun, Oct. 15, 1912.

  WEBBER TESTIFIES Klein, pp. 142–49.

  VALLON TESTIFIES New York Times, Oct. 15, 1912; Klein, pp. 149–51.

  SCHEPPS’S APPEARANCE New York Sun, Oct. 16, 1912.

  “PROSPEROUS DEPARTMENT STORE AUDITOR” Logan, p. 196.

  “DODGING DETECTIVES IN THE CATSKILLS” New York Sun, Oct. 16, 1912.

  “MORE AND MORE PUGNACIOUS” Ibid.

  “FAVORITE CHICK OF A WITNESS” Ibid.

  “CAREFULLY EXCLUDED HIMSELF” Ibid.

  “WHISPERED IN EACH OTHER’S EARS” Klein, p. 169.

  SCHEPPS AND BECKER Ibid., pp. 164–65; Logan, p. 197.

  “FROM LUNCHTIME UNTIL EVENING…” Klein, p. 162.

  “WHAT HAD THE GAMBLERS DISCUSSED…?” Logan, pp. 196–97.

  “HERMAN’S AT THE METROPOLE” Ibid.

  “CORNER OF THE MOUTH SMILE” New York Sun, Oct. 16, 1912. “SOME HEAVY KICKS…” Klein, p. 164.

  “TRY AND THINK AGAIN, MR. SCHEPPS” Ibid., p. 168.