National Affairs: In Room 349

Dapper gentlemen with quick eyes and imperturbable faces frequent, or used to frequent, a little restaurant at 50th Street and Broadway, Manhattan. They are gentlemen with varied interests—dog and horse racing, realty, baseball, politics, lady friends, perhaps a side line now and then in narcotics or stolen securities. They are, or were, interested in almost anything involving money in sums of ten to a hundred “grand” (thousand dollars), and some stimulating element of risk.

What takes them, or took them, to the little restaurant to see each other was a consuming desire to play with their money directly, on the turn of a card, the fall of dice. Between Central Park and 42nd Street, all around the little restaurant, is a forest of “broadminded” hotels where a man can keep a girl or a case of liquor or organize a fairly professional gambling game. Word would go to the little restaurant : “Room such-and-such, Hotel so-and-so.” The dapper gentlemen played only among themselves, or with sports like themselves who would blow in from other big cities to “take that mob over the jumps.”

Of all the dapper gentlemen, none was more inspired and self-confident than Arnold Rothstein, a sleek Jew inclining to flesh in his late forties. Hotel managers fawned on him, because he owned a hotel himself. Newspaper editors disliked to call him “gambler” when he got into the news. The New York World used to euphemize and call him an “operator,” knowing well that many another citizen gambled as often though perhaps not so daringly as Rothstein. He won a few hundred “grand” on this year’s World’s Series—a contest which he was said to have “fixed” in 1919. He was supposed to have “shot the works” (bet all he had) on Hoover’s election, most of it at the excellent odds of 8 to 5.

One evening in late September there was a stud-poker and high-spade game in the apartment of one James Meehan. It lasted 24 hours. Meehan did not play, but received a percentage for the use of his premises. The players were Arnold Rothstein; George McManus, brother of a Manhattan police Lieutenant, Meyer Boston, shrewd Manhattan “operator”; Edward C. (“Titanic”) Thompson, Chicago plunger; “Nigger Nate” Raymond, San Francisco sport; and a few lesser figures. Raymond was the big winner and a slick-looking fellow called “Tough Willie” McCabe, onetime Chicago beer-legger, was supposed to have a half interest in his play.

Rothstein was the big loser. At the end of the sitting he had to give his IOU for $349,000. He gave another IOU for $49,000 in cash lying on the table, which he shoved into his pocket. “See you later,” he told them, and went his way.

Most of the Rothstein enterprises were deep in debt. His election bets were calculated to pull him out of a bad hole. Necessarily, he was slow about taking up his IOU’s. The trouble was, he had been slow that way before. His tongue could be as sharp in debt as it could be smooth in velvet. The creditors grew restive. They persuaded George McManus, whom Rothstein trusted, to call him over for a “creditors’ meeting” one evening last month. Rothstein got the call in the little restaurant and started over to the Park Central Hotel where McManus was registered as “George Richards,” in Room 349.

Murder. Some of the Park Central’s guests thought they heard a shot. A taxi-driver thought he heard another cab backfire. Anyway, Rothstein was found inside a locked service entrance on the ground floor of the Park Central, staggering, with a bullet in his groin. He declined to say where or by whom he had been shot. He soon died. Outside the hotel, a discharged gun was found, dented by a fall of perhaps three stories. . . .

Muddle. There had been six “big” unsolved murders in New York City in the past 18 months. This looked like a seventh. A storm of reproaches and sarcasm gathered when, after ten days, no arrest had been made. Newspapers hinted broadly at “Protection.”

Mayor. A dapper, quick-eyed gentleman in an easy chair at the City Hall—a Manhattanite with sporting instincts not unlike Rothstein’s except that his gambling is in votes and publicity—could stand it no longer. Once before, under deadly parallel circumstances, a Mayor of New York had lost caste when a gambler’s murderers were brought to justice slowly during his administration.* So Mayor James John Walker called for his Police Commissioner and gave him a certain number of days to get “action.”

Police Commissioner Joseph A. Warren was a slender, mild-mannered, long-nosed man whom Mayor Walker had called to the most difficult post in any city administration f after he had made a good record as Commissioner of Accounts. There was no intimation that he was not doing his honest best, but the Rothstein case contained dark dangers for Tammany Hall. The city’s Republicans began talking about putting up a strong candidate to run against Mayor Walker next year. It became obvious that “for the good of the service,” i.e. Mayor Walker’s political welfare, Commissioner Warren would be obliged to resign.

McManus. The appearance of Gambler McManus, was the next major development. Through his lawyer he “surrendered” to one of his brother’s fellow detectives. He pleaded “not guilty.” He was held without bail and District Attorney Banton announced: “We have a beautiful case of circumstantial evidence.” Gambler McManus, who refused to talk to Attorney Banton, smiled. He knew that warrants were out for the arrest of Jane Doe, John Doe and Richard Roe—persons as yet uncaught by Attorney Banton but suspected perhaps more than McManus of having actually committed the murder in Room 349. Further apprehensions were still delayed last week. The Grand Jury indicted McManus and one Hyman (”Gillie”) Biller, the late Rothstein’s “payoff” man, for first-degree murder. Biller remained at large.

Dope. Digging up Rothstein’s past to discover clues to his murder, investigators connected Rothstein with all manner of large-scale crockery. Federal agents announced they had certain proof that Rothstein was associated in an international narcotic syndicate with the dead Alfred Loewenstein, the Belgian financier who plunged from his plane into the English Channel. Papers found in Rothstein’s files led to the discovery and seizure, in Grand Central Station last fortnight, of two trunks containing $2,000,000 worth of opium, cocaine, heroin, morphine. Two agents of this dope-ring were soon in custody, a Mrs. June Boyd in Chicago and one Joseph Unger who was on his way from Chicago to get the trunks in Manhattan when officers stopped the Twentieth Century Limited and rousted him out of his berth and into jail at Buffalo.

Whalen. After much humiliating and farcical discussion of how his resignation must be worded to cause Mayor Walker as little political embarrassment as possible, Police Commissioner Warren last week resigned. “As you very well know,” his letter to the Mayor said, “I have for a long time been desirous of returning to the practice of law.”

Mayor Walker meantime, had been expending his energies upon “drafting” a new police commissioner. His choice was striking if not sensational. It gave a cartoonist the chance to picture New York’s police chief greeting a distinguished criminal with pomp and circumstance at the city gates. Mayor Walker’s choice was Grover Aloysius Whalen, for years (until Mayor Walker was inaugurated in 1926) the sartorial mainstay and social sheet-anchor of Tammany Hall, longtime chairman of the Mayor’s Committee on Receptions to Distinguished Guests.

Industrious son of an East Side contractor, Grover Aloysius Whalen acquired at military academy a stately physique and carriage which have excited admiration in Manhattan’s smart tailorshops and large parades ever since. Onetime Mayor John F. (“Red Mike”) Hylan, himself ungraceful socially, discovered Mr. Whalen’s usefulness as a handshaker, and Mayor Walker, a busy man, continued him as the city’s official greeter. The list of notables greeted in his time by Handshaker Whalen is far too long to print, but includes Belgian, British, Italian, Japanese, Swedish, and Rumanian Royalty. Polish generals, Brazilian and Venezuelan Presidents, Australian politicians, Ramsay MacDonald (twice) and daughter, etc. etc. “From most of these distinguished persons,” says Mr. Whalen’s biographer, “Mr. Whalen has received letters of thanks and esteem, which, it is useless to say, he values among his priceless treasures.”

When not handshaking the Whalen talents have been applied to general-managing the John Wanamaker department store in Manhattan, a position he accepted in 1924 after a most notable career in publie offices ranging from Mayor’s secretary to Commissioner of Plants & Structures.

Mr. Whalen’s business colleagues were extremely reluctant to let him leave John Wanamaker. He is, they explained, “an extraordinary organizer and executive.” Finally the Wanamaker reluctance was overcome and Grover Aloysius Whalen accepted the job of Police commissioner. “It is just that kind of man we want for this job,” replied glib Mayor Walker, “… a job that we regard as vital to the welfare of New York City.”

-The Rosenthal case of 1912, during the administration of the late Mayor William Jay Gaynor. Herman Rosenthal was a Jew gambler much like Rothstein. He ran houses downtown. When he tried to move uptown, he met opposition from police who protected uptown houses. He threatened to expose the police. A Lieut. Charles Becker, who had been his partner in downtown ventures, engaged the services of four famed gunmen—”Lefty Louis” Rosenberg, “Gyp the Blood” Horowitz, “Whitey” Lewis, “Dago Frank” Cirofici—and Rosenthal was shot down in West 43rd Street within 100 yards of four policemen. State’s Attorney Charles S. Whitman accused the police of complicity. It took several months, and the special services of Detective William J. Burns, to obtain death sentences for Becker and the four gunmen. Mayor Gaynor, who had backed up his police chief, was asked to resign. He declined, but died of heart trouble before his term was out.

In 27 years, New York City has had 14 police commissioners. All but three were failures.