The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis

  Having brought the largest state in the Union under his political dominion, House now wanted to play an important role in national politics. He was a Democrat, who believed that his party’s next Presidential nominee should be an Eastern liberal. House was a kingmaker in search of a king, a hero worshiper in search of a hero. An unpretentious man, he moved into an unpretentious building in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan at 145 East Thirty-fifth Street. He and his wife merely occupied an apartment. The colonel’s moderate-sized study held a Queen Anne desk, a chaise longue, two giant leather chairs, and a wall lined with books.

  Back in Texas, Colonel House had become friendly with William Jennings Bryan, an ambitious politician from the Midwest. The Bryan family had left the chilly prairies of Nebraska to winter in the warmer climate of Texas because of their ailing daughter. Looking over Bryan, as he looked over all promising politicians, House was amazed to see “how lacking he was in political sagacity and common sense.” House made this judgment before Bryan ran three times as the Democratic Presidential candidate, only to be defeated in 1896, 1900, and 1908. Although Bryan hankered for a fourth chance at the Presidency, he told House that Mayor Gaynor of New York might be able to win for the Democrats.

  William Jay Gaynor liked to mislead those who wrote about his early life, but it seems that he was born on a farm in central New York State in 1851. A Catholic, in 1863 he entered the novitiate of De la Salle Institute in New York City and was assigned the name of Brother Adrian Denys. After almost five years in the religious order Gaynor withdrew and abandoned Catholicism. He taught school, worked as a newspaper reporter, studied law, passed his bar examination, and practiced law in Brooklyn. For sixteen years he served as a justice of the New York State supreme court. With the help of Tammany Hall he was elected mayor of New York and took office on January 1, 1910.

  Mayor Gaynor was the most cantankerous man ever to rule the city, his temper tantrums making even Peter Stuyvesant and Fiorello LaGuardia look like altar boys. Of average height and slight of build, an inveterate walker who moved with almost feminine grace, Gaynor was a handsome man, with a graying Vandyke beard and sharp eyes under his black eyebrows. He liked children and adored pigs, and while serving as a judge, he once threw an inkwell at a man in open court. Still, Gaynor was of a philosophical bent, read widely in the classics, and concealed his malicious humor behind unsmiling blue eyes.

  After taking office as mayor, he gave the back of his hand to Tammany politicians, who had put him there. Concerned only with having his own way and, incidentally, with making this a better city, Gaynor lashed out on every side. During the first 2 months of his administration he saved taxpayers about $700,000 by pulling politicians away from the public trough. He cut other city expenses. He killed boards and bureaus he considered superfluous. One disgusted Tammany brave snarled that Gaynor “did more to break up the Democratic organization than any other man ever has in this city.”

  Regardless of the roars of the Tammany tiger, the mayor won a reputation as a liberal. Magazine articles declared that Gaynor had the stuff of which Presidents are made. With the perspective granted us by time, we know that this was not true. Gaynor couldn’t break through the stalemate of forces surrounding him, never was able to lead the board of estimate, and foolishly placed faith in his naïve police commissioner.

  Colonel Edward House looked and listened. Mulling over what Bryan had said about Gaynor and reading laudatory articles about him, House felt that perhaps this righteous reformer was just the man he sought. One of Gaynor’s few friends was James Creelman, the celebrated reporter, war correspondent, and editorial writer. In 1910 Creelman was working as associate editor of Pearson’s Magazine and writing another book. Colonel House, who knew Creelman, asked him for an introduction to Mayor Gaynor. In the early summer of 1910 the three men met for dinner in the Lotus Club, at 556 Fifth Avenue near Forty-fifth Street.

  Creelman was a delightful host. A dignified man with a small goatee and a worldly character, who had interviewed Chief Sitting Bull and Count Leo Tolstoy, Creelman ordered the best wine for his guests. The dinner lasted until after midnight. Colonel House was impressed with the mayor. Later he said:

  I had been told that Gaynor was brusque even to rudeness, but I did not find him so in the slightest. He knew perfectly well what the dinner was for, and he seemed to try to put his best side to the front. . . . He showed a knowledge of public affairs altogether beyond my expectations and greater, indeed, than that of any public man that I at that time knew personally.

  Anticipating the Presidential campaign of 1912, Colonel House wooed Mayor Gaynor. He also went back to Texas and induced members of the legislature to invite the New York mayor to address them. A formal invitation was telegraphed to Gaynor. For several days nothing was heard from him. Finally, a reporter on a small Texas newspaper wired Gaynor to ask whether or not he planned to speak to the Texas lawmakers. Gaynor replied that he had heard of no such proposal and had no intention of appearing in Texas. The mayor then sent Creelman a letter saying that anyone who thought he had the Presidency in mind was wrong.

  It is difficult to explain Gaynor’s behavior. Maybe he really didn’t want to become President. Perhaps he indeed wanted this exalted office but felt he couldn’t get it. There is even the possibility that Gaynor forsook a try for the Presidency to avenge himself upon William Randolph Hearst. Gaynor and Hearst always fought bitterly. The Hearst papers had published a story saying that Gaynor was going to Texas to address the legislature. Maybe Gaynor chose this way of making a liar out of Hearst. In any event, Colonel House became disenchanted with the mayor, saying, “I wiped Gaynor from my political slate, for I saw he was impossible.” Like Diogenes, lantern hunting for a man he could admire, Colonel House continued his search.

  Meantime, an attempt was made to assassinate Mayor Gaynor. After having worked for seven months on municipal affairs, Gaynor decided to vacation in Europe. On August 9, 1910, accompanied by his son Rufus, he boarded the S.S. Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse at Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson from Manhattan. A natty dresser, his outfit topped with a black derby, the mayor stood on deck, chatting with friends, three city commissioners, his corporation counsel, and his male secretary. A New York World photographer, William Warnecke, raised his camera to take a picture of the group. At that moment an untidy little man stepped up behind the mayor. This intruder turned out to be James J. Gallagher, who had been fired from his job in the city docks department and who blamed the mayor for his trouble. Gallagher pressed a gun to the back of Gaynor’s neck. He pulled the trigger. The bullet entered behind the mayor’s right ear. Gaynor later wrote to his sister:

  My next consciousness was of a terrible metallic roar in my head. It filled my head, which seemed as though it would burst open. It swelled to the highest pitch, and then fell, and then rose again, and so alternated until it subsided into a continuous buzz. It was sickening, but my stomach did not give way. I was meanwhile entirely sightless. I do not think I fell, for when I became conscious I was on my feet. I suppose they saved me from falling, and they were supporting me. My sight gradually returned, so that after a while I could see the deck and the outlines of the crowd around me. I became conscious that I was choking. Blood was coming from my mouth and nose and I tried all I could to swallow it so those around me would not see it. But I found I could not swallow and then knew my throat was hurt. It seemed as though it were dislocated. I struggled to breathe through my mouth, but could not, and thought I was dying of strangulation. I kept thinking all the time the best thing to do. I was not a bit afraid to die if that was God’s will of me. I said to myself just as well now as a few years from now. No one who contemplates the immensity of Almighty God, and of His universe and His works, and realizes what an atom he is in it all, can fear to die in this flesh, yea, even though it were true that he is dissolved forever into the infinity of matter and mind from which he came. In some way I happened to close my mouth tight and found I breathed perfectly t
hrough my nose. I then believed I could keep from smothering. But I kept choking and my mouth kept opening to cast out the blood. But much of it went down into my stomach.

  The World photographer, who clicked his camera two or three seconds after the would-be assassin fired, got one of the most notable pictures in journalistic history. Blood gushed down the mayor’s beard. More blood mottled his neck and dripped onto the front of his neat suit. At the time the World’s city editor was Charles E. Chapin, a brilliant but cynical man, who later murdered his own wife. When Warnecke’s print was developed in the World office, Chapin grabbed it and exulted: “What a wonderful thing! Look! Blood all over him—and exclusive, too!”

  Aboard the liner at Hoboken, “Big Bill” Edwards, the New York street-cleaning commissioner and a former Princeton football player, grabbed Gallagher and held him until the police arrived. The mayor was urged to lie down on the deck but refused. He couldn’t bear to have people see him in this horrible condition. He was led to his stateroom and lifted into bed. Because he was choking, they had to prop him up. The ship’s doctor washed Gaynor’s face and beard and bandaged his wound. An ambulance came to take the mayor to St. Mary’s Hospital in Hoboken. He remained there for about three weeks.

  When Mayor Gaynor returned to City Hall on October 3, a crowd of 10,000 people gathered to cheer him. Although the mayor looked haggard, he was as crusty as ever. Hearing an officious policeman bellowing at people around his car, Gaynor poked his head out a window and snapped, “None of that, now! None of that!” The next day the mayor resumed his habit of walking from his Brooklyn home across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall and then back again in the evening. But surgeons had been unable to extract the bullet from his throat, and he was a sick man the rest of his life. When he didn’t want to talk about an unpleasant subject, Gaynor would croak, “Sorry, can’t talk today. This fish hook in my throat is bothering me.” His temper, always brittle, now shattered at the slightest touch.

  Former Mayor George B. McClellan wrote in his memoirs:

  I doubt if Gaynor was ever quite normal, certainly not after he was shot at the base of his brain by a lunatic. I was told by an employee of the Harriman Night and Day Bank that about two o’clock one morning a bearded face appeared at his window, and the owner asked him to cash a check for ten dollars. The employee recognized the mayor and cashed the check. Whereupon the mayor, evidently intending to return the courtesy, said “Wouldn’t you like to feel the bullet in my throat? If you will stick your finger into my mouth you will be able to do so.” He seemed rather hurt when my informant politely declined to accept his offer. I was told that during the last months of his life Gaynor was in the habit of appearing at the City Hall at all hours of the night, routing out the night watchman, and sitting for hours in his office with his eyes fixed on vacancy.*

  The mayor quarreled with nearly everyone. When he couldn’t force his iron-willed police commissioner to do his bidding, Gaynor replaced him with Rhinelander Waldo. A hero of the Spanish-American War and a socialite with high ideals, Waldo was so naïve that veteran policemen regarded him as a glorified Boy Scout. Unable to believe that any cop could be corrupt, Waldo was slow in catching onto the nefarious activities of Police Lieutenant Charles Becker. This officer commanded the so-called Strong Arm Squad, charged with suppressing gambling and vice. Becker was as handsome as he was venal. On the sly he became a partner of Herman Rosenthal, an influential underworld figure. After opening one gambling joint after another, only to have them raided by the police, Rosenthal decided to pay protection money by tying in with Lieutenant Becker.

  This partnership worked well for a while, but soon Mayor Gaynor and Commissioner Waldo received anonymous complaints about Becker’s link with the underworld. The police commissioner habitually referred complaints about cops to the police themselves for investigation. Naturally, they would report that there was nothing to the accusations. Becker’s connections with Rosenthal and other crooks were so profitable that he banked about $100,000, although his salary was a mere $2,250. Even Waldo finally became suspicious and ordered Becker to crack down on gambling. To protect himself and to allay suspicion by doing as ordered, Becker made the gesture of raiding one of Rosenthal’s gambling dens. Along with two other men, he arrested Rosenthal’s nephew. When Rosenthal heard the news, he flushed with anger and asked Becker what the hell he thought he was doing. Becker tried to soothe his furious partner by saying that it was a token raid and by assuring him that his nephew would be released.

  The grand jury took the charges seriously, however, and indicted Rosenthal’s nephew and his companions. Rosenthal felt that he had been doublecrossed. Eager for revenge, he went to District Attorney Charles Whitman and tried to swear out a citizen’s complaint against Becker. The D.A. told the gambler that he didn’t have enough evidence to indict the police lieutenant. Given the brush-off by Whitman, Rosenthal told his story all over again to the New York World, then in the midst of a gambling exposé. He was taken seriously by Herbert Bayard Swope, one of the World’s top reporters. The newspaper published articles that goaded the district attorney into action, and finally Whitman summoned Rosenthal to his office. They agreed that Rosenthal would testify before the grand jury on July 16, 1912.

  Becker realized that his vice empire would topple the moment Rosenthal took the witness stand. The officer got in touch with his bagman, a Polish immigrant, named Jacob Rosenschweig, but known as Billiard Ball Jack Rose because he didn’t have a hair on his body. Becker ordered Rose to hire some gunmen for $1,000 and have Rosenthal murdered. The bagman had no stomach for this kind of crime, but under pressure from Becker he hired four thugs: Frank Muller, alias Whitey Lewis; Harry Horowitz, alias Gyp the Blood; Louis Rosenberg, alias Leftie Louie; and Frank Ciroficci, alias Dago Frank.

  At 2 A.M. on the day Rosenthal was to appear before the grand jury, these hoodlums shot him down on the sidewalk in front of the Metropole Hotel on West Forty-third Street just east of Broadway. Although 7 policemen were within 500 feet of the spot, one of them only 50 feet away, the gunmen escaped in a gray sedan.

  Well aware of the enmity between Rosenthal and Lieutenant Becker, other police tried to cover up the crime so that it couldn’t be traced to their fellow officer. However, Swope got District Attorney Whitman out of bed within an hour of the shooting, and Whitman launched a thorough investigation of the case. Billiard Ball Jack Rose later swore that he had asked Becker if Becker had seen the corpse. Rose quoted Becker as replying, “Sure! I went to the back room and had a look at him. It was a pleasing sight to me to look at the Jew there. If Whitman had not been there I would have cut his tongue out and hung it somewhere as a warning to other squealers.”

  When Whitman promised Rose immunity from prosecution, the bagman confessed full details of the crime. The case was the talk of the town. Mayor Gaynor tried to shrug it off by saying:

  The case of Becker did not surprise me at all. Although we had done much to remove grafting and make it impossible in the Police Department, I knew very well that it would in all probability crop out in more places than one. The instance which has cropped out has enabled the degenerate press to characterize the whole force as a band of grafters. But I am certain that the intelligent community still have in mind, and have had in mind all along, what we have done in the way of reform in the Police Department.

  Despite the mayor’s defiant words, New Yorkers grumbled about this latest evidence of police corruption. The four gunmen and Lieutenant Becker were electrocuted at Sing Sing. The Rosenthal case drove gamblers out of town, made Swope’s reputation as a crusading newspaperman, and elevated Whitman to the office of governor of New York State.

  While still holding office, Mayor Gaynor died in 1913 aboard a ship a few miles off Liverpool, England. The New York Sun, once bitterly hostile toward Gaynor, now mourned that “first and foremost, he was, as no other Mayor ever was, the people’s champion, the actual father of the city.” The New York Times described Gaynor’s funeral as the
greatest public demonstration since Lincoln’s death; this seems highly unlikely.

  Gaynor was gone, but Colonel Edward House had found his hero—Woodrow Wilson. After the colonel’s disenchantment with Gaynor the Texas politician had considered and rejected others he might promote for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Wilson, like Gaynor, had been elected to office with the help of political bosses and had then declared himself free of them. Now he was governor of New Jersey. Wilson had trimmed his sails in another way, too, by switching from being a conservative before his election to being a progressive after taking the oath of office. As Wilson won national attention by denouncing boss rule and the vested interests, Colonel House began to study his personality and career.

  In August, 1911, some prominent Texans launched a Wilson for President campaign. William Jennings Bryan still dominated the national Democratic organization despite his three defeats as a Presidential candidate. Now Bryan, the progressive, told friends that Governor Wilson of New Jersey was making speeches that sounded mighty progressive. Colonel House himself began to believe that Wilson might be just the man the Democrats needed for the 1912 campaign.

  Wilson spoke at the Dallas Fair, but Colonel House was in New York at the time and did not hear him. It was just as well. A master strategist, who thought through every tactic, House had not cared to meet Wilson for the first time amid the tumult of a Dallas reception. He preferred a quiet private meeting. Wilson, for his part, had begun to hear about Colonel House, who was represented as a man of great political influence. Furthermore, House was close to Bryan, and Wilson wanted Bryan’s approval before announcing for the Democratic nomination. So William F. McCombs, general manager of the Wilson for President movement, asked Colonel House to invite the New Jersey governor to New York to confer with him.