The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-03-10
GORDON DEATH
FOURTH MAJOR
GOTHAM crime
RosenthaI, Rothstein and
King Murders Offer
Striking Parallel.
KILLED TO SEAL LIPS
Five Went to Chair After
lnformer Was Slain to
Halt 'SquaWking.'
BY SIDNEY b. WHIPPLE
United Press star Correspondent


NEW YORK, March 10-Wages
OF Broadway sin have increased
amazingly since the days of 1912
when Police Lieutenant Charles
Becker ordered the assassination Of
Herman Rosenthal because he
threatened to squeal about Becker's
$50, 000-a-year graft In the Tender
loin.
Nineteen years-bringing up to
1881, when Vivian Gordon was
strangled as she was about to dis
close her part in the $4,000, 900 an
nual crime business of New York's
night club belt--have seen the
mushrooning of prohibition evasion,
OF bootlegging, narcotic peddling,
gambling and racketeering. But,
though the price may be higher, the
methods, varied by gun or rope, re-
main the same.
New York has seen three previous
major crimes that have rocked DO
lice departments, shaken admins
trations, and brought reform
waves" surging through municipal
politics, In the past twenty years.
ROsenthal Slain In 1912
Details of these crimino political
events have a parallel In the
parallel, amateur detectives profess
to find clews to the murderers Of
Vivian Gordon, night life racketeer,
extortioner, protege Of an organized
vice ring, whose body was found,
nearly two weeks ago, in a lonely
spot In the Bronx, strangled.
Herman Rosenthal was shot to
death outside the Metropole on July
i6. 1912. He had gone about town
threatening to expose the graft at
tached to Lieutenant Becker's ad-
ministration of the Tenderloin, and
the neutenant's partnership with
gamblers, bawdy housekeepers and
purveyors of illicit entertainment.
It was shown that he had been
put on the spot" on the orders Of
Becker, and that Gyp the Blood,
Lefty Louie, Dago Frank and Whitley
Lewis were the gunner.
Five Go to Chair
The public revelled in the NOR
bid disclosures Of the tieup between
vice and police. Becker and the
four gunner went to the chair at
Sing Sing and District Attorney
Charles S. Whitman went to the
Governors chair at Albany. But
not before big Jack" Zelig, a wit
ness for the prosecution, had been
found dead Of a bullet, one morn
ing before the trial.
The reform wave" swept John
Purrcy Mitchell, fusionist, into city
hall.
On Nov. 4, 1928, Arnold Rothstein,
dope king, gambler, receiver OF Sto-
len bond; fence, crook and million
aire, was shot in the vicinity-or
within-the Park Central hotel.
Joab Banton was the district at
torney. Federal officials, peeping at
Rothstein's papers, uncovered a mar
cotic ring that reached from coast
to coast. Mr.. Banton-and for this
he was criticised severely-failed to
find any clews in the Rothstein pa
pers, and gave them back to attor-
neys.
Whalen on Job
Mayor Walker removed Police
Commissioner Joseph Warren and
appointed the dapper Grover A.
Whalen in his place. Whalen dis
charged the head Of the detective
bureau and the chief Of the homicide
squad. George McManus, a gambler,
was tried for the murder, and &C
quilted.
District Attorney Banton went out,
and District Attorney Thomas G. 7.
Grain went in, promising to clear up
the Rothstein murder In two weeks.
The murder remains on the books
today, unSolved..
The Dot King murder, in 1913,
provided g setting similar to that Of
Vivian Gordon. Dot King, broad
way butterfly, was under the power
OF a number Of sinister characters,
who tried to use her as a means Of
Matchmaking a wealthy admirer-
Later identified 40 a Princeton man,
son-in-law Of Edward T. Stotesbury,
who was q partner of j. P. Morgan.
Girl Found Dead
The girl was found dead, chloro-
formed, in her rooms at the Great
Northern hotel Her protector" had
left her, he said, several hours be-
fore.
Police investigations came to
nothing to expose another re-
lationship between the girl and the
late Draper M. Daugherty, son Of
the former Harding cabinet officer.
Finally. there is Vivian Gordon.
On a Friday she went before the
Seabury crime investigation COM
mission, tc testify to ''frameup."
On the following Thursday morn
ing her body was found, clothes
line knotted around her neck.
Today the reform wave" once
more sweeps New York, and 1t Is
District Attorney Grain who Isl I'M
der IRE. His Office now is subject
to an official investigation, oriered
by Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.