Such a policy needed a sophisticated, intelligent practitioner-a first-rate, tough, politically savvy police commissioner. Gaynor's first Commissioner, Brooklyn lawyer James C. Cropsey, might have been that man. However, Cropsey quickly resented Gaynor's constant interference and quit.
Gaynor transferred Fire Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo, an energetic but naive socialite, to the job. For reasons not yet understandable (though some say at Tammany's request), Waldo engaged Lieutenant Charles Becker to cleanse the city. Rightfully suspicious of the local precinct houses, Gaynor had created two centralized vice squads-"strong arm squads" to maintain his "outward order and decency." Waldo created a third and named Lieutenant Charles Becker to head it.
Soon Becker basically ran all three squads, collecting graft he never dreamt of. To foster the illusion of activity and integrity (and also to warn those reluctant to pay him bribes), he raided numerous gambling houses. He staged raids on phony houses to further impress Waldo and other gullible observers. He even engaged a press agent, Broadway's Charlie Plitt, to herald his accomplishments.
Charles Becker now required his own bagmen and enforcers. He didn't trust other cops, so he chose as his prime collector a gambler, prizefight promoter, and onetime minor-league baseball manager named Bald Jack Rose (a.k.a. Billiard Ball Jack Rose), so nicknamed because he had not a single hair on his entire body. To help enforce discipline, when a mere raid wouldn't do, Becker relied on the services of one of Manhattan's up-and-coming young hoodlums, Big Jack Zelig, to beat recalcitrants into submission.
Life was good for Becker, but not without problems. Particularly vexatious was veteran East Side gambler Herman "Beansy" Rosenthal, who, in February 1912, opened a gambling house at 104 West 45th Street. Big Tim Sullivan had a soft spot for Beansy Rosenthal. Although they didn't know why, no one could deny that the big Irishman loved the pudgy little Jew. Herman Rosenthal certainly knew it, and thought Big Tim's patronage gave him license to operate anywhere and without paying off anyone.
Becker didn't like the arrangement but lived with it, at least as long as he had to. In early 1912, however, Big Tim's mind began to slip: he was suffering from syphilitic paresis. As Sullivan's faculties went, so did his power.
Becker would now collect from Rosenthal-and, for good measure, collect more from Rosenthal's colleagues. Becker press agent Charlie Plitt had killed a man when Becker raided what the Times called "a Harlem negro gambling resort." Becker raised a Plitt defense fund, assessing a donation from each gambler in his territory: in Beansy's case, $500. Rosenthal recognized this as a pure shakedown and refused to pay. Bad things started happening to Herman Rosenthal. One night Jack Zelig's crew beat him to a pulp. When Rosenthal still wouldn't pay, Becker took 20 percent of his gambling house. But when Commissioner Waldo demanded to know why certain gambling rooms at 104 West 45th Street remained open, Becker ended up raiding what was now his own place. Feeling doubly betrayed, Rosenthal publicly spouted off against Becker, who retaliated by posting an around-the-clock police guard to shutter Rosenthal's house.
Rosenthal tried telling his story to Mayor Gaynor. Gaynor refused to listen, but Herbert Bayard Swope, now editor of the New York World, would. Swope had Rosenthal narrate his tale in affidavit form, then published an edited version (omitting Becker's name). Becker traveled downtown to the World's office to read the original version, including this passage:
The first time I met Charles Becker, now a Lieutenant of Police in New York City, and who was holding the same office at the time of our first meeting, was at a ball given by the Order of Elks in Forty-third Street, near Sixth Avenue, and we had a very good evening, drank very freely and we became very good friends. Our next meeting was by appointment on New Year's Eve, 1912, at the Elks Club....
We drank a lot of champagne that night, and later in the morning we were all pretty well under the weather. He put his arms around me and kissed me. He said, "Anything in the world for you, Herman. I'll get up at three o'clock in the morning to do you a favor. You can have anything I've got. " And then he called over his three men, James White, Charles Foy and Charles Steinhart, and he introduced me to the three of them, saying, "This is my best pal and do anything he wants you to do."
Rosenthal also scheduled a meeting with Manhattan's Republican District Attorney Charles Seymour Whitman, a ruthlessly ambitious reformer. The combination of Beansy Rosenthal's allegations and Charles Whitman's power and drive could prove dangerous. Becker now faced numerous unpleasant scenarios, up to and including prison. But even if no indictment resulted, the situation was simply bad for business.
Arnold Rothstein knew everything that transpired on Broadway, including what his old acquaintance Beansy was up to. So did Tammany Boss Tom Foley (one of Big Tim Sullivan's closest allies), who approached Rothstein about silencing Rosenthal. "Get that stupid son of a bitch out of town," Foley ordered.
A. R. dispatched John Shaughnessy, a pitman at his gambling house, to bring Herman to the Rothstein brownstone. Rothstein had little patience for fools, and absolutely none for Rosenthal and his dangerous, stupid game that could sink everyone. Beansy argued that Becker had overstepped his bounds, that Big Tim Sullivan protected him, and no cop had any right to violate that protection.
"The Big Feller isn't here," Rothstein shot back. "And if he was, he'd tell you to keep your trap shut. All you can do is make trouble for a lot of people."
"I don't want to make trouble for anyone, only Becker," Herman protested. "They ask me about anybody else, I won't tell them. Only about Becker." Rothstein didn't believe him.
"They're smarter than you are," A. R. responded. "They're not interested in doing you any favors. Whitman is only interested in Whitman and the Republicans. He'll crucify the Big Feller."
"They can't make me say what I don't want to say," Beansy snapped.
Rothstein got down to business. "Beansy, you've got to get out of town," he said, handing him $500. "Lay away until this thing blows over. Here's enough money to get you out. If you need more, let me know."
But Rosenthal was too stubborn-and stupid-to listen. "I'm not leaving town," he responded. "That's what Becker wants me to do. I'm staying right here."
Herman remained in town, kept shooting off his mouth, but occasionally enjoyed spasms of good judgment. One day he visited Arnold's home. "I've changed my mind," he said. "Give me the money and I'll get out of town."
Rothstein replied icily: "You waited too long."
Beansy didn't realize how desperate his situation had become: "Let me have the five hundred. I'll go 'way someplace and hide."
But the decision had already been made. No one has to pay dead men for silence. "You're not worth five hundred to anyone any more, Beansy," Rothstein responded.
Rosenthal couldn't believe what he heard. "Then you can go to hell," he sputtered as he fled Rothstein's home.
On the following night, Monday July 15, 1912, Herman Rosenthal visited Charles Whitman's office, laying out his whole story. Returning from downtown, Rosenthal again visited A. R. and still vacillated, still wanting Rothstein's help. He told Arnold where he'd been and asked if Arnold could help with his rent money.
Rothstein remained uninterested. Beansy wouldn't live long enough to spend the cash. "In that case," said A. R., "if you want money you go and get it from the District Attorney."
Rosenthal walked from A. R.'s 46th Street home down to West 43rd Street, to his favorite haunt, the Metropole Hotel, owned by the Considine Brothers and by none other than Big Tim Sullivan him self-and where Arnold Rothstein had only recently operated the gambling concession. At the Metropole Rosenthal pawed through a pile of newspapers. Each carried stories of his big expose. The publicity pleased him: "Gambler Charges Police Lieutenant Was His Partner," blared Swope's World headline. Beansy liked being a big man, such a big man that nobody could touch him. Not Rothstein. Not Becker. Maybe not even Big Tim.
Beansy downed a few drinks (horse's tails-ginger ale with a twist of lemon) and ate his big s
teak "as if he could take it with him." Usually, a five-man Hungarian orchestra performed at the Metropole, but Monday nights were slow and the Considines hired a ragtime piano player to bang out the "Bunny Hug" and the "Ocean Roll," but there was nothing festive about the atmosphere. Everyone knew something was about to happen. They avoided Herman Rosenthal like the plague. Outside, West 43rd Street was strangely silent. Police shooed passersby off the sidewalks. They, too, expected something ...
At 1:40 A.M., someone-witnesses never agreed who-asked Rosenthal: "Can you come outside for a minute, Herman?"
Beansy didn't hesitate. He left a dollar tip (for his eighty-cent bill), put on his hat, and walked outside. A car drove by. Four-maybe five-men got out, firing pistols point-blank at Rosenthal. Five shots. Four hit their target. Three in the head. One in the neck.
Charles Whitman got the news. He had ordered Beansy to stay home, but Beansy clearly had trouble following advice. Whitman realized he should have provided protection to his star witnessalthough obviously there was a problem in providing police protection. Within an hour Whitman arrived at the precinct house nearest the Metropole, the seedy West 47th Street Station, just west of Eighth Avenue. Two things caught his interest. One was Lieutenant Charles Becker's arrival. His presence at the station seemed to confirm Whitman's already-great suspicions. Equally suspicious was the state of the police investigation. Several police officers were patrolling 43rd Street as Rosenthal met his fate. An off-duty police detective was dining at the Metropole. Yet no one apprehended the assailants. No one in uniform correctly noted the license number of the murder vehicle. Save for the alert eyes of Charles Gallagher, that license number might never have been revealed.
Gallagher, an unemployed cabaret singer walking to the Metropole to inquire about a job, first tried alerting an officer on the murder scene to the correct number: "New York 41313." He was ignored. Gallagher tried again, with Lieutenant Edward Frye. "I got the license number of that car," he repeated.
"We already have it," Frey snarled, shoving him away.
Gallagher went to the precinct house to restate his story. "We got the number," the desk sergeant responded, without gratitude or interest.
In fact, police possessed four different numbers: none Gallagher's, none correct.
"The car went past me-this far away. I know I got it right," Gallagher elaborated.
"Are you a witness?" the sergeant screamed.
Gallagher got the message. The police didn't want the right number. "No sir," he stammered. "I just got the license number. I thought-"
Gallagher never finished. Police threw him into a cell.
Reporters witnessed the scene at the station and told Whitman. He ordered Gallagher brought to him. Police apologized profusely. They had, they said, clearly misunderstood the value of Gallagher's information.
They hadn't. It was extremely valuable and broke the case wide open. Whitman quickly traced "41313" to a 1909 gray Packard touring car owned by one Louis Libby, who rented it out for hire. Libby hadn't chauffeured the car that night, but his partner, William Shapiro, had. Shapiro readily admitted his passengers had assassinated Beansy Rosenthal. He claimed that Bald Jack Rose-Becker's bagman-had hired the car.
Even before Whitman had interrogated Libby or Shapiro, he knew who the ultimate villain was. The next afternoon, Thursday, July 16, he told reporters:
I accuse the police department of New York, through certain members of it, with having murdered Herman Rosenthal.
Either directly or indirectly it was because of them that he was slain in cold blood with never a chance for his life. And the time and place selected were such as to inspire terror in the hearts of those the system had most to fear. It was intended to be a lesson to anyone who might have thought of exposing the alliance between the police and crime.
Just as he was about to give important additional evidence and to give the names of eight or ten men who could and would support his charges; just as the situation shapes up most dangerously for the police involved, he is killed and with him his evidence.
But the case against Lieutenant Becker will be pushed through with all possible vigor, even though it is apparent no conviction can result.
Whitman spoke too soon. Tammany knew when to cut its losses. Republican investigations had a pattern of failing to deliver the knockout punch. Usually, a cop could be thrown overboard: a Big Bill Devery, a Clubber Williams. There was no need for Charles Whitman to poke around Tammany if a high-profile cop could be sacrificed to protect it, particularly one everyone agreed was crooked to the core. Charles Becker was highly expendable.
Defending Libby and Shapiro was Aaron J. Levy, New York State Assemblyman from Manhattan's Fourth District, and despite his youth (he had just turned thirty-one on the 4th of July) one of Tammany's more influential attorneys. After visiting his clients on Thursday, July 18 Levy handed the press a typed statement that included this:
Shapiro told me [that] after the shooting he was working with his motor and pretended it would not start. One of the parties [murderers] said: `Don't stall that engine. You had better get it started and be damned quick about it.
Shapiro still hesitated and one of the parties said: "Go on, you fool, get started: don't you know the cops are fixed and no one will bother us? It is a clean getaway."
That was interesting enough, but reporters wanted more. They asked Levy: "Do you believe that this murder was a gamblers' feud?"
"I do not," he answered.
"Do you believe it was a gang feud?"
"I do not."
"Well, then, what kind of feud do you think it was, Mr. Levy?"
"Now then, I am afraid I have as good as told you already."
Yes, he had. By mentioning the police fix, Levy was signaling Whitman that Charles Becker had murdered Rosenthal. Soon he would be more direct ("Rose is not a big factor in this case. There is Lieutenant Charles Becker and a few others") and speak of "contemplated arrangements" with Whitman's office to free his clients, arrangements having little to do with Libby and Shapiro, and everything to do with protecting Big Tim Sullivan and Tammany Hall. That night, a mysterious figure visited Whitman's Madison Avenue home. The two men conferred for three hours. At this point, just about every coming-and-going in the case was being reported instantly, but Whitman never revealed the identity of his visitor. A day later, the Times reported he was "a very well-known gambler of the Broadway tribe" there to "take up the story where the dead Rosenthal left off."
Was it Arnold Rothstein? Most gamblers associated with the case-aside from Beansy and Arnold-were not Broadway gamblers, but Lower East Side types. And if any of these gamblers had appeared to verify Rosenthal's story of harassment from Becker, Whitman would have ignored him. Within a week, the district attorney admitted as much publicly when rumors began floating of Big Tim's owning a piece of Rosenthal's operation. On Monday, July 22 Whitman dismissed such information contemptuously-he was "investigating a murder, and not conducting a sociological investigation." What he meant was that Sullivan and Tammany were off limits in this case. So was Arnold Rothstein. Whitman would carefully, meticulously, exclude Sullivan's and Rothstein's names from both Becker murder trials-further evidence that A. R. had delivered a deal to Whitman.
The deal? Tammany would give up Becker. It would not surrender Big Tim. Whitman accepted the deal.
Meanwhile, William Sullivan informed Assemblyman Levy of the identity of the three gamblers with Jack Rose during the murderLouis "Bridgey" Webber (so nicknamed for his brief marriage to a 200-pound prostitute named Bridget), Harry Vallon, and Sam Schepps. He also divulged the names of three of the gunmen: "Lefty," "Whitey," and "Gyp"-Lefty Louie Rosenberg, Whitey Lewis, and Harry "Gyp the Blood" Horowitz. All worked for Big Jack Zelig.
On Monday, July 22, just a week after the murder, Whitman indicted six men-Libby and Shapiro; two gamblers in the murder car: Rose and Webber; and two others: well-known gambler Sam Paul, at whose recent gamblers outing to Long Island talk ran that
if Rosenthal couldn't keep his mouth shut someone would "get him and get him for keeps"; and Becker associate and former William Randolph Hearst bodyguard Jacob Reich (a.k.a. Jack Sullivan, "The King of the Newsboys"). On the night of the murder, Reich accompanied Becker to Madison Square Garden. Becker then conveniently dropped off Reich at the Metropole-in time to witness Rosenthal's death.
Another Tammany lawyer now entered the drama. Max D. Steuer had come to America from Austria literally in steerage and worked his way up from Lower East Side newspaper and match peddler (with a cowbell tied around his neck to attract customers) to Columbia Law School. On May 1911 the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire killed 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women their employers had locked in their workplace. Steuer successfully defended company owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris on manslaughter charges, earning him the enmity of those on the Lower East Side who lost friends and family in the inferno-but also cemented his reputation as the city's toughest defense lawyer.
Steuer never minded doing Tammany's work-it was he, after all, who had informed Charles Francis Murphy of how to exclude Big Bill Devery from the county committee. Steuer at first wanted no part of defending Bridgey Webber, but soon changed his mind: "yield[ing] to the persuasion of friends who felt the interests of someone whose name has not been mentioned in the case would not be safe unless a lawyer of Steuer's ability was on hand to represent them." Steuer was yet another protege of Big Tim Sullivan. He was clearly present not to defend Webber, but to ensure he (and another gambler in custody, Harry Vallon) confessed and implicated Charles Becker.
Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series Page 9