Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-07-09
CHAPTER 1.
Con stitutional Smith.

was due 20 the fness" which made him.
upon occasion. a successful swindler. But
II was as a strOngarm man that he eN-
celled He possessed the first essential
individual strength To very great degree
II is the lack of fine physical ability. the
lack Of strength. that has too often been
the ruin of strUnGarm men, and has
brought the profession into disrepute.
strongtrm man who can neither success
fully cvade nor battle with the police de
partmcut. individually and collectively, is
something less than cipher He is more
than knave-he is fool His place Is be-
hind the ribbon counter in a dry goods
store He is. literally, no good.
Constitutional Smith was none of these.
He had been too well brought up. He was
a thoroughbred. His father was the man
who cracked the County National EInk in
New York in - and made the most sue
CeSsful and sensational loot of the decade.
His other came of i family of welI-kuown
and well-TeCogniZed hOuSc5redkerS. and his
grandfather was one of the most accom-
plished horse thieves west of the Miss. sip
pi. The branches and teudrils of his fun
fly root had for generation after generation
received life and nourishment from many
varied strata of the under world.
Constitutional Smith had several virtues
He had no sweet hearts, and no regular as
sociates or pals. He had no entangling al
lancos. He worked alone. Beyond that,
apparently, he laid no schemes and made
no plans; he left no track trail behind
him; there were TO earmarks to his jobs
Members of the force arriving at the scene
of operations in any particular case could
never say from evidence Re left; This is
one of Constitutiuutls jobs" Not by
long shot. And herein he wise. For it
is the man who carefully lays plans who
makes trouble for himself the man VINO
hangs around job before il is executed
that is identified upon his trial. 1t is the
man who walks in and does his Job and
then walks out that goes scot free There
are many instances of this. Up in Mlssl-
chusetis few years ago some one-who.
no one knows to this day-walked into a
house. butchered its occupants executed
robbery. and then walked out. A hundred
people might have seen this thing AS a
matter OF fact. one saw it. wear LATER
the same thing happened in Brooklyn The
whole countryside discussed each of these
cases Tor year Each is still mystery.
NOW, constitutional Smith was not a
butcher. He had never killed even in self
delsnSe: But his methods were just that
Suude MY ht swooped down upon his victim
be II house or bank or Individual did his
work and left-that was all. He was too
economical to leave his visiting card He
walked away-and there was another little
mystery to his credit: and new failure
chalked up against the sleuths
And Constitutional Smith had another
Nlrtue-he was close mouthed he never
talked lie never blabbed He took good
care that word Of his achievements never
reached the dives. No one ever Whispered
In tne holes in the ground that "Constitu-
tionals made another haul" To make con
fdants of his fellow criminals was, as Com
sttutional regarded it. placing just so much
material evidence in the hands of the po-
Ice. The Constitution guaranteed to Con
StItutiOual the right of free speech but
Constitutional Smith knew that in his case
freedom of speech meant the curtailment
of his liberty Silence Is golden. and time
usually is money; and in this case speech
meant just the sort of time that COnstitu-
tOnal preferred not to do, and silence was
money IN his pocket. So he kept mum, did
Constitutional Smith.
Constitutional had another vlrtue-he was
gentle He had giants strength, but he
rarely used it like giant. Like a success
full and popular dentist, he could not al
ways help hurting his victim, but he hurt
no more than was necessary. But whereas
the dentist hammers in the vicinity of the
skull to put gold in. constitutional hammer
Cd for the purpose of taking gold out. But
his little love taps were fatal. He had
another dentists habit-he used anaeS-
thetic. Abstracting money from the person
OF an individual is always painful He
merCifully deadened the pain as much
poss.ble. But he never carried tools or
arms or chloroform save for about an hour
before and an hour after each job He
knew better lie was well up In the law
of evidence
As an earnest of the skill and ingenuity
of Mr.. Smith, il is only fair to mention here
one or two Of his achievements. The world
knows about some of them and has mar
veled at them, although in each case Consti-
tutIonal Smith left the prisoners dock a
free man. with an improved charge behind
him That was because constitutional
Smith had prepared his defense before he
had committed his crime-a wise thing TO
do An ounce OF prevention is worth
pound of cure These cases merely have TO
be mentioned in order to be recalled.
One OF these was the famous bank mes
senger case. II robbery perpetrated
upon three bank messengers. each fully
armed and perpetrated in broad daylight
I'm Wall street in the sight of half a thou
sand men. To moral certainty Constitu-
tional Smith did II, but to a legal certainty
he did not. He acquitted at any rate
The man that did it got off with some S3O,-
600 in United States currency. Constitu-
tional Smith has never yet denied the per
petration of this crime
His second great alleged offense consisted
in cracking the Atlantic and Pacific Trust
Company safe In 1899. This was done by
means OF setting up false front To the
safe. painted on canvas-a complete fac
simile of the safe itself. A member of the
force and a detailed Waterman looked with
CCmplaisanCe upon this false front all
through the night. Behind II were Constitu-
tioual Smith and dismantled safe. This
coup d'etat resulted in another famous
case of the people. etc. vs. Smith. 1t re-
suited also in another acquittal of the one
and-July Smith.
TO the trial Of his third he owes
his peculiar name In that case his guilt
of some crime At least-waS proven beyond
a reasonable doubt. He was charged with
larceny from the person of one Wiloughby
G. Schrenck. The larceny was accompa MED
with violence. The crime occurred ON the
outskirts of country town. Wiloughby
g. Schenck was driving home. and foolish
ly carried with him nearly $4,000 in
cash. the proceeds of real estate deal
closed late in the afternoon. He was held
w ON the highway by one of two persons,
either Smith or another. This other prob
ably was an accomplice, though Smith as
has been indicated, rarely worked with an
accomplice. This man upon the trial was
claimed to be a stranger and was the prn-
cpal witness against Smith. Smith. how
ever, showed conClusively that this stranger
was covered with blood, presumably the
victims. while Smith was innocent of any
evidence of the crime The strangers evil
dence was all the prosecution had Smith
was acquitted and the stranger was arrest
ed On his trial Smith took the stand and
swore that the blood upon the stranger s
clothes was obtained in fight by which
the stranger attempted TO arrest Smith at
the time of the robbery. The circumstances
were peculiar but upon each trial the
facts seemed to corroborate Smith.
The alleged stranger acquitted
Smith was rearrested for the crime ira
mediately, but Immediately he claimed his