Satan's Circus

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.

  4. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

  (all published in New York City unless otherwise stated)


  American

  Brooklyn Daily Eagle

  Daily Argus (Middletown, NY)

  Daily Sentinel (Fitchburg, MA)

  Evening Ledger (Philadelphia, PA)

  Evening Post

  Globe and Mail

  Herald

  Journal

  McClure’s Magazine

  Morning Telegraph

  Sullivan County Democrat (Callicoon, NY)

  Sullivan County Record ( Jeffersonville, NY)

  Sun

  Tageblat

  Times

  Tribune

  World

  5. PUBLISHED WORKS

  Allen, Oliver. The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall. Reading [MA]: Addison-Wesley, 1993.

  Anbinder, Tyler. Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum. New York: The Free Press, 2001.

  Anon. (ed.). Report of the Citizen’s Committee Appointed at the Cooper Union Meeting, August 12, 1912. New York: n.p., 1913.

  Asbury, Herbert. Sucker’s Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in America from the Colonies to Canfield. New York: Dodd Mead, 1938.

  ———. The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1998.

  Astor, Gerald. The New York Cops: An Informal History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971.

  Benfey, Christopher. The Double Life of Stephen Crane. London: Andre Deutsch, 1992.

  Berger, Meyer. The Eight Million: Journal of a New York Correspondent. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

  Berman, Jay S. Police Administration and Progressive Reform: Theodore Roosevelt as Police Commissioner of New York. Greenwood [CT]: Greenwood Press, 1987.

  Botkin, Benjamin (ed.). New York City Folklore. New York: Random House, 1956.

  Brown, Henry Collins, From Alley Pond to Rockefeller Center. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1936.

  Burns, Ric, and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades. New York: An Illustrated History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.

  Burrows, Edwin, and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  Chafetz, Henry. Play the Devil: A History of Gambling in the United States from 1492 to 1950. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1960.

  Chamberlain, Rudolph. There Is No Truce: A Life of Thomas Mott Osborne. New York: Macmillan, 1935.

  Chin, Gabriel (ed.). New York City Police Corruption Investigation Commissions, 1894–1994, 6 vols. Buffalo: W. S. Hein, 1997.

  Christianson, Scott. Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

  Clarke, Donald Henderson. In the Reign of Rothstein. New York: Grosset Dunlap, 1929.

  ———. Man of the World: Recollections of an Irreverent Reporter. New York: Vanguard Press, 1950.

  Cohen, Rich. Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams. New York: Simon Schuster, 1998.

  Costello, Augustine. Our Police Protectors: A History of the New York Police. Montclair [NJ]: Patterson Smith, 1972.

  Crane, Milton (ed.). Sins of New York. New York: Bantam Books, 1950.

  Curran, Henry. Pillar to Post. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1941.

  Czitrom, Daniel. “Underworlds and Underdogs: Big Tim Sullivan and Metropolitan Politics in New York, 1889–1913.” Journal of American History 78(1991).

  DeArment, Robert. Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend. Norman [OK]: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

  Delmar, Viña. The Becker Scandal: A Time Remembered. New York: Harcourt, Brace World, 1968.

  Downey, Patrick. Gangster City: The History of the New York Underworld 1900–1935. Fort Lee [NJ]: Barricade Books, 2004.

  Eliot, Marc. Down 42nd Street: Sex, Money, Culture, and Politics at the Crossroads of the World. New York: Warner Books, 2001.

  English, T. J. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish-American Gangster. New York: Regan Books, 2005.

  Fogelson, Robert. Big City Police. Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 1977.

  Frey, Robert Seitz, and Nancy Thompson. The Silent and the Dammed: The Murder of Mary Phogan and the Lynching of Leo Frank. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002.

  Fried, Albert. The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

  Friedman, Jacob. The Impeachment of Governor William Sulzer. London: P. S. King Son, 1939.

  Fryckstedt, Olov. “Stephen Crane in the Tenderloin.” Studia Neophilologica 34 (1962).

  Garland, Hamlin. Roadside Meetings. London: John Lane, 1931.

  Gilfoyle, Timothy. City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992.

  Goren, Arthur. New York Jews and the Quest for Community: The Kehillah Experiment, 1908–1922. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.

  Graham, J. S. The Callicoon Historian: A Narrative of Leading Events in the History of the Delaware Valley, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Hancock [NY]: Herald Press, 1892.

  Green, Horace. The Log of a Noncombatant. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1915.

  Guerin, Eddie. Crime: The Autobiography of a Crook. London: John Murray, 1928.

  Hammack, David. Power and Society: Greater New York at the Turn of the Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

  Harlow, Alvin. Old Bowery Days: The Chronicles of a Famous Street. New York: D. Appleton, 1931.

  Henderson, Thomas. Tammany Hall and the New Immigrants: The Progressive Years. New York: Arno Press, 1976.

  Hickey, John. Our Police Guardians: History of the Police Department of the City of New-York… New York: n.p., c. 1925.

  Homberger, Eric. The Historical Atlas of New York City. New York: Owl Books, 1998.

  Jeffers, H. Paul. Commissioner Roosevelt: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt and the New York City Police, 1895–1897. New York: John Wiley Sons, 1994.

  Joselit, Jenna. Our Gang: Jewish Crime and the New York Jewish Community, 1900–1940. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983.

  Kahn, E. J. The World of Swope. New York: Simon Schuster, 1965.

  Katcher, Leo. The Big Bankroll: the Life and Times of Arnold Rothstein. New York: Harper, 1959.

  Kildare, Owen. My Mamie Rose: The Story of My Regeneration. New York: Baker Taylor Company, 1903.

  Klein, Henry. Sacrificed: The Story of Police Lieut. Charles Becker. New York: privately published, 1927.

  Kouwenhoven, John. Historical Portrait of New York: An Essay in Graphic History. Garden City [NY]: Doubleday, 1953.

  Lardner, James, and Thomas Reppetto. NYPD: A City and Its Police. New York: Henry Holt, 2000.

  Laurence, John. A History of Capitol Punishment. New York: Citadel Press, 1960.

  Lewis, Alfred. Man of the World. Herbert Bayard Swope: A Charmed Life of Pulitzer Prizes, Poker and Politics. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1978.

  Lewison, Edwin. John Purroy Mitchel: The Boy Mayor of New York. New York: Astra Books, 1965.

  Logan, Andy. Against the Evidence: The Becker-Rosenthal Affair. London: Weidenfeld Nicholson, 1971.

  McAdoo, William. Guarding a Great City. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.

  McCurrin, James. Bourke Cockran: A Freelance in American Politics. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.

  Maurer, David. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Men. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.

  Mitchell, Joseph. McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon. New York: Duell, Sloan Pearce, n.d. (1943).

  Mitgang, Herbert. The Man Who Rode the Tiger: The Life and Times of Judge Samuel Seabury. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1963.

  Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. London: William Collins, Sons Co., 1979.

  Morris, James McGrath. The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism. New York: Fordham University Press, 2003.

  Morris, Lloyd. Incredible New York: High Life and Low
Life of the Last 100 Years. New York: Random House, 1951.

  Morton, James. Gangland: The Early Years. London: Time Warner, 2004.

  Myers, Gustavus. The History of Tammany Hall. New York: Boni Liveright, 1917.

  Nasaw, David. The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst. London: Gibson Square Books, 2002.

  Nevins, Frances. “Mr. Tutt’s Jurisprudential Journey: The Stories of Arthur Train.” In Legal Studies Forum 19 (1995).

  O’Connor, Richard. Hell’s Kitchen: The Roaring Days of New York’s Wild West Side. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1958.

  ———. Courtroom Warrior: The Combative Career of William Travers Jerome. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.

  Pietrusza, David. Rothstein: The Life, Times and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series. New York: Carroll Graf, 2003.

  Pink, Louis Heaton. Gaynor: The Tammany Mayor Who Swallowed the Tiger; Lawyer, Judge, Philosopher. New York: International Press, 1931.

  Pitkin, Thomas. The Black Hand: A Chapter in Ethnic Crime. Totowa [NJ]: Littlefield, Adams Co., 1977.

  Quinlan, James. History of Sullivan County. Liberty [NY]: W. T. Morgans Co., 1873.

  Richardson, James. The New York Police: Colonial Times to 1901. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.

  Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. New York: Penguin, 1997.

  Riordan, William. Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics. Mattituck [NY]: Amereon House, 1982.

  Rockaway, Robert. But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes of fewish Gangsters. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2000.

  Root, Jonathan. The Life and Bad Times of Charlie Becker: The True Story of a Famous American Murder Trial. London: Secker Warburg, 1961.

  Rosen, Ruth. The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900–1918. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.

  Rovere, Richard. Howe Hummel: Their True and Scandalous History. London: Michael Joseph, 1948.