The Press: Mystery Plunge

“Mystery Plunge”

Alone at the stern of his yacht Sabalo steaming from New York Harbor toward Chesapeake Bay one evening last week, sat Van Lear Black, publisher of the Baltimore Suns,— puffing an after-dinner cigaret. He was perched upon the after-railing—his favorite stance, against which others were forever cautioning him.

Publisher Black reflected pleasantly on the preceding days’ events: his entertainment of Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd and Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt aboard the Sabalo; a flying trip to Saratoga for the races; another flight to Newport to see the twins, boy and girl, just born to his daughter, Mrs. Alfred J. Bolton. On their way home now, his only guest, his cousin Mrs. J. Walter Lord, had already retired. It was 9:30. Soon he would go to his cabin. But he did not go.

At 10 o’clock, Publisher Black’s valet looked for him in the saloon, in his cabin, on deck. There he found his employer’s handkerchief. He ran to the bridge to tell Capt. John M. Kelley. The Sabalo put about. Foot by foot a searchlight’s bright shaft swept a circle about the idling yacht, found only its own zig-zag reflection. (The owner’s yachting cap was fished from the sea two days later.)

Toward midnight Boatswain R. Anderson of the Coast Guard Patrol Boat No. 215 sighted the Sabalo’s wavering beacon, overtook her. What happened next was a matter of strange dispute. Capt. Kelley later charged that C. G. 215 ignored his plea for help and steamed away. Boatswain Anderson insisted his offer of aid had been declined, that he had trailed the Sabalo which, he said, steamed for about an hour with its searchlight turned off.

Whatever the reason for these discrepancies, the Press made the most of them. Here was not only the mysterious death of a tycoon, but of a man of the Press— an occasion for extra zeal. Paul Patterson, Mr. Black’s publishing associate, satisfied investigators that Mr. Black, a drinking man, had not been drunk. The suicide angle was dropped when Mr. Patterson explained that Mr. Black’s estrangement from his wife was a ”happy mismating.” But front-page stories for two days stressed the variance in the ships’ reports, expressing by their emphasis and alertness a professional suspicion that there was more than met the eye in this “mystery plunge.”

Van Lear Black, onetime clerk, raised himself through the grades of business and finance to the directorship of banks, shipping companies, insurance firms, was longest identified with Baltimore’s Fidelity & Deposit Co. Known as the richest man in Maryland (he was insured for $750,000), he could easily afford to indulge his hobbies, chief among which was traveling by airplane. In his private planes, with two pilots whom he originally borrowed from Royal Dutch Air lines in 1927, he flew approximately 130,000 mi. in all parts of the world.

Van Lear Black’s role of newsman was in a sense vicarious. He was No. 1 man of the company which owns the Suns, but he knew his professional limitations and left the conduct of the papers to trained hands. Yet he liked to be known as a newsman and was an attendant at dinners of Washington’s Gridiron Club. A steady source of “copy” while alive, he became in death something nearly approaching the perfect news story.

Day’s Work

“. . . Smith Bray, Negro, 39, of 32 Hillside Place, died today in city hospital with a bullet in his head. The shot that brought him down was fired by Edward Leary . . .”

Thus methodically did Reporter Edward Leary, police headquarters man for the Newark Star-Eagle, begin a shooting yarn of which he was the hero last week.

The story: Negro Bray, returning home, surprised his wife and her friend Albert Roberts. Bray drew a revolver and emptied it around the room. Roberts fell stone dead, a bullet through the heart; a slug tore through Mrs. Bray’s arm. Bray fled.

Because the alarm came from an unsavory part of town—in which Reporter Leary had conducted a vice investigation six months ago and for which he was permitted to carry a pistol—Acting Captain of Detectives Thomas Rowe collected reserves from headquarters, deputized Reporter Leary on the spot. From whimpering Mrs. Bray the identity and whereabouts of the murderer were found. Captain Rowe, Reporter Leary and seven others went in after him, cornered him in a dark back room. Leary was ordered outside to cover the window with a flashlight.

Bray repeatedly shot through the door, raking Captain Rowe across the stomach, then jumped out the window. Twice Reporter Leary ordered him to stand. Twice Bray clicked his jammed revolver at him. Then Reporter Leary, onetime U. S. Army sidearms instructor, fired at Bray, shot him through the head.

Editor & Candidate

Many a reader of the Scripps-Howard liberal New York Telegram wondered what its editors thought of, what they would do about Colyumist Heywood Broun’s Socialist candidacy for Congress (TIME, Aug. 11). Last week they learned from Editor Roy Wilson Howard: “We don’t think much of it and we are going to do less.”

Wrote Editor Howard: “It had been our boast that . . . few Scripps-Howard editors had gone to jail and [none] . . . to Congress. . . . Broun’s nomination constituted a threat. But a hasty survey is reassuring. In the last election the Socialist candidate in the 17th District polled some 1,600 out of something over 60,000* votes cast. . . . That Broun is running on a so-called Socialist ticket seems … of no importance. The Telegram is opposed to Marxian Socialism … as unsound and impractical. But . . . the Telegram has no fear of the ‘mercerized’ socialism of independent thinkers of the type of Norman Thomas and Heywood Broun. . . . Theirs is Socialism in name only. . . . Meantime, Broun will continue to write for the Telegram.”

Next day Colyumist Broun replied to his boss: “I am tired of hearing all this talk about how the honest average citizen should get into politics and not leave it to the machine professionals. . . . [As for Socialism] at times the Scripps-Howard independence becomes little more than erratic whimsy. . . . [Mr. Howard] says I should stay on the sidelines with him and the rest of the Scripps-Howard executives joining in the long-drawn independent-liberal cheer of ‘Hold ’em, forces of reform and decency!”:

* Strictly, the Baltimore Sun and Evening Sun are published by A. S. Abell Co., of which Mr. Black was longtime Chairman of the Board.

* The Congressional Directory’s total: 70,721.