by Mike Dash
THE DECLINE OF TAMMANY HALL Thomas Henderson, Tammany Hall and the New Immigrants, pp. 4–5, 9–15, 42–46, 93, 99, 115–19, 121.
TAMMANY AND GRAFT Ibid., pp. 97–98; Nancy Weiss, Charles Francis Murphy, 1858–1924, p. 59; Allen, op. cit., pp. 212–13.
ROTHSTEIN David Pietrusza, Rothstein, pp. 4, 91–100, 147–92, 195–203; Leo Katcher, The Big Bankroll, pp. 91–101, 349. Rothstein’s murder, incidentally, occurred within the boundaries policed by the same West Forty-seventh Street precinct house where Herman Rosenthal’s body had been brought sixteen years earlier and was recorded in the same police blotter. Meyer Berger, The Eight Million, pp. 140–41.
SWOPE Allan Lewis, Man of the World: Herbert Bayard Swope, pp. ix–x, 43, 223, 287; E. J. Kahn, The World of Swope, pp. 20, 25, 26, 149, 152–53, 331, 378, 475.
DECLINE OF THE SULLIVANS New York Times, Dec. 26, 1913; Alvin Harlow, Old Bowery Days, pp. 517–22, 535–36. It is true that Christy Sullivan went on to serve a lengthy stint in Congress on behalf of his old constituency, returning in 1937 to become the chief of Tammany Hall. But he accomplished little or nothing in either role. Allen, op. cit., p. 257.
THE OCCIDENTAL The hotel is still there and still in use, though nowadays it is known as the Sohotel Privilege—a low-budget place with a varied clientele and plenty of activity in the lobby after dark.
WHITMAN’S TERM AS GOVERNOR AND LATER LIFE No study devoted to Whitman’s administration exists. My passage is based on the entry for Whitman (by Andy Logan) in the Dictionary of American Biography, supplement 4 (1946–50), pp. 884–86; Klein, p. 423; Herbert Mitgang, The Man Who Rode the Tiger, pp. 117–22; Logan, pp. 333–38; Rudolph Chamberlain, There Is No Truce, p. 347; and Whitman’s New York Times obituary, March 30, 1947.
EVEN THE SOBER TIMES…” New York Times, July 24, 1915.
JACOB LUBAN “This,” Luban wrote to a friend, “is the biggest commutation ever handed down in this State, or in any other State…. Now you understand that during my thirteen months [in jail] I have used my friends all I possibly could.” Luban’s letter was discovered by Henry Klein when he searched through the district attorney’s files relating to the Becker case. Klein, p. 115.
JOHN GOFF See the Dictionary of American Biography p. 7, pp. 359–60.
SAMUEL SEABURY Mitgang, op. cit., pp. 107–8, 181–82, 188, 203–300, 363–66; Allen, op. cit., pp. 242–59.
SULLIVAN, COCKRAN, MCINTYRE, MOSS, STRYKER, AND MANTON James McCurrin, Bourke Cockran, pp. 292–302, 321–22; Logan, pp. 281–82, 332–33; Dictionary of American Biography supplement 13, pp. 279–80; Lloyd Stryker, The Art of Advocacy, pp. 285–96.
RHINELANDER WALDO New York Times, Aug. 14, 1927.
JOHN BECKER Mary Becker, personal communication, Nov. 28, 2004, author’s files.
MAX SCHMITTBERGER AND CLUBBER WILLIAMS Previous writers on the Becker case have never agreed on Williams’s financial position or the date of his death, some stating that he died a millionaire as early as 1910. In fact, Clubber died on March 31, 1917; a report on the appraisal of his estate, revealing his poverty and giving this as the date of his death, appeared in the New York Times, Jan. 30, 1918. For Schmittberger’s career and later life, see the Times of March 14, 1909; Lincoln Steffens, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens I, 278, 284; Augustine Costello, Our Police Protectors, p. 558; Logan, p. 330.
WINFIELD SHEEHAN Logan, pp. 59, 319, 330.
THOMAS MOTT OSBORNE Chamberlain, op. cit., pp. 328, 362, 367, 404, 412.
LIBBY AND SHAPIRO Shoenfeld Story #121, Magnes Papers P3/1782, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem.
“INFAMOUS GRAY PACKARD” The Rosenthal “death car” was purchased from Libby and Shapiro by a company that used it to chauffeur tourists around the main sites made famous by the Becker case. Logan, p. 220.
VALLON, SCHEPPS, MARSHALL, WEBBER, AND ROSE New York Times, June 17, 1913, and Nov. 26, 1941; Meyer Berger, “The Becker Case: View of ‘The System,’” New York Times Magazine, Nov. 11, 1951, pp. 65–66; Klein, pp. 430–31; Logan, pp. 225–28, 248, 266, 286, 299, 333; Jonathan Root, The Life and Bad Times of Charlie Becker, pp. 227, 231. Bridgey Webber died, of complications resulting from a burst appendix, on the twenty-first anniversary of Becker’s execution: July 30, 1936; New York Times, July 31, 1936. Rose died in Roosevelt Hospital, Manhattan, on October 4, 1947; a short obituary appeared in the New York Times, Oct. 9, 1947.
CHICAGO MAY May Sharpe, Chicago May: Her Story, pp. 56, 135–41, 336; Eddie Guerin, Crime, pp. 158–279; James Morton, Gangland: The Early Years, pp. 211–12, 217 and n, 221. Guerin’s escape, incidentally, was from the French prison camp at Moroni, on the mainland of French Guinea, not from Devil’s Island itself.
LETITIA, PAUL, HOWARD, AND CHRISTOPHER BECKER New York World, July 30, 1912; Sullivan County Record, Aug. 8, 1915; Humboldt and Washoe County censuses, Nevada, for 1920; American Sociological Review, Dec. 1960. Details of Howard’s personality and the “difficulty” of other members of the family are from Howard S. Becker to Mary Becker, e-mail, undated, and Mary Becker to Howard S. Becker, e-mail, undated, MBC; details of Christopher Becker’s interment are from the author’s visit to the cemetery at Callicoon Center, October 2004. Christopher Becker died in a house fire in March 1994, and it would appear that his collection of Becker material was destroyed in the same blaze.
MRS. ZELIG’S BENEFIT Shoenfeld story #272, Jan. 6, 1913, Magnes Papers P3/1786. Henrietta Young seems to have left New York for Boston soon afterward. At the end of February 1913, a bail bondsman named Henry Friedman was jailed in that city for the theft of $600 from her. This implies she must have been arrested there. Fitchburg Daily Sentinel [MA], Feb. 28, 1913.
HUMPTY JACKSON Luc Sante, Low Life, pp. 218–19.
LATER LIFE OF LILLIAN ROSENTHAL Berger, op. cit., p. 65.
LATER LIFE OF HELEN BECKER Ibid., p. 66; Logan, p. 331; Klein, p. 407. She was buried—under her maiden name—in the same grave as her husband; grave photos in MBC.
“I PREFER TO REMAIN A WIDOW” Root, op. cit., p. 285.
“HE WAS NOT AN ANGEL …” New York Herald, July 31, 1915; Logan, p. 325.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. ARCHIVAL SOURCES
[A] MARY BECKER COLLECTION (MBC)
Charles Becker letters and Becker family histories in a private archive
[B] NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
Andy Logan papers
[C] CENTRAL ARCHIVES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, JERUSALEM
Judah Leib Magnes Papers
2. OFFICIAL PAPERS
New York State Senate. Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the Police Department of the City of New York [Lexow Committee]. In Documents of the Senate of the State of New York, vols. 9–13. Albany: James B. Lyon, 1895.
Special Committee of the Board of Aldermen. 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]. New York: n.p., 1913.
New York Reports, vols. 210, 215.
3. UNPUBLISHED THESES
Bernstein, Rachel. Boarding-House Keepers and Brothel Keepers in New York City, 1880–1910. Ph.D. thesis, Rutgers University, 1984.
Gandal, Keith. The Spectacle of the Poor: Jacob Riis, Stephen Crane and the Representation of Slum Life. Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Berkeley, 1990.
Kaplan, Michael. The World of the B’hoys: Urban Violence and the Political Culture of Antebellum New York City, 1825–1860. Ph.D. thesis, New York University, 1996.
Levine, Jerald. Police, Parties and Polity: The Bureaucratization, Unionization, and Professionalization of the New York City Police, 1870–1917. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1971.
Thale, Christopher. Civilizing New York: Police Patrol, 1880–1935. Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1995.
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Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Daily Argus (Middletown, NY)
Daily Sentinel (Fitchburg, MA)
Evening Ledger (Philadelphia, PA)
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Globe and Mail
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