That American Century
A history podcast about the people and events shaping the United States in the 20th Century. Communists, Capitalists, Populists, Feminists, Imperialists, Isolationists, Anarchists, Atheists and Fundamentalists welcome 🇺🇸
That American Century
Arnold Rothstein | Ep 13
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What does the Black Sox Scandal and the Becker-Rosenthal case have in common? Arnold Rothstein.
His career in New York City's world of vice spans the 1890s to the 1920s, adjusting during periods of reform and always staying steps removed from scandal.
If we're talking about graft and organized crime in the 20th century, we should definitely mention Arnold Rothstein.
All this and more - in this episode of That American Century.
Music from Epidemic Sound.
Sources for this episode include:
- Rothstein by David Pietrusza
- Satan's Circus by Mike Dash
- The Society for American Baseball Research
- InfamousNewYork.com
- The Chicago Tribune September 29, 1920
- The Philadelphia Enquirer September 29, 1920
December 1919. The New York Evening World publishes a column sensationally titled Is Big League Baseball Being Run for Gamblers? With players in the deal? Written by Chicago sports writer Hugh Fullerton, it read, Quote, Professional Baseball has reached a crisis. The major leagues, both owners and players, are on trial. Charges of crookedness among the owners. Accusations of cheating, of tampering with each other's teams, with attempting to syndicate and control baseball are bandied about openly. Charges that gamblers have succeeded in bribing ball players. That games have been bought and sold, that players are in the pay of professional gamblers, and that even the World Series was tampered with are made without attempt at refutation by the men who have their fortunes invested in baseball. The most serious assaults on the good name of the game have been made during and since the World Series between the Reds and the White Sox. In Chicago, St. Louis, and other cities, the stories have been discussed, names used, alleged facts stated, until half the people believe there was something wrong with the series. Unquote. The article was written months after the Chicago White Sox, highly favored to easily take the 1919 series, lost to the Cincinnati Reds. Nine months later, in September 1920, two players would confess and implicate six of their teammates. Eight indictments were handed out. And Eddie Seacott, a player for the White Sox, in tears, told the grand jury, quote, I've lived a thousand years in the last year. I never did anything I regretted so much in my life. I would give anything in the world if I could undo my axe in the last World Series. I've played a crooked game. And I've lost, and I am here to tell the whole truth. The payoff for the players would total $100,000, which translates to roughly $2,000. Popular history would credit one man for financing the fix. He would never be indicted, and the complicated layers of the scheme would make it difficult to ever peg him completely for his role in the scandal. Putting up the money was New York gambler, fixer, and financier Arnold Rothstein.
BobbyAnd I'm Bobby.
ShannonAnd this is that American Century.
BobbyYes.
ShannonAmerica's pastime, America's game, our game. Tainted.
BobbyYes.
ShannonIn the 1919 series. Devastating. This was devastating.
BobbyVery sad.
ShannonOver a hundred years later, still talked about, still debated about. Answers are still not completely clear.
BobbyWeren't the players in Field of Dreams?
ShannonYes, they were.
BobbyInvolved in this, and this is why they wanted to just come play?
ShannonYes, yes. You're right, Bobby. You are exactly right.
SPEAKER_02That's good to be playing again, huh? Getting thrown out of baseball was like having part of me amputated. I've heard that old men wake up and scratch itchy legs that have been dust for over 50 years. That was me. I'd wake up at night with the smell of the ballpark in my nose. The cool of the grass on my feet. Can you pitch? Yeah. Not bad.
SPEAKER_06Don't we need a catcher?
SPEAKER_02Not if you get it near the plate, we don't.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_02I am pitching to shoeless Joe Jackson.
SPEAKER_01Nice hit.
Shannon1919 was not a good year in the United States. The Great War had ended November 1918. And roughly six months later, racial tensions would explode. And white supremacists would target black Americans in what would come to be known as the Red Summer. The summer of 1919. Race riots, a very violent, scary time. We'll cover that in a future episode. But it's important to know that this World Series is happening at a time when the country is in fighting. And this series, for a lot of people, was probably a way to escape, a reprieve from the darkness.
SPEAKER_05Mm-hmm.
ShannonThe sadness that was permeating the public consciousness in 1919.
BobbyThen that's taken away and sort of like nothing is sacred now.
ShannonExactly.
BobbyThere's no escape from this, yeah, misery.
ShannonYeah. The series happens in October 1919. People are talking right away that it's fixed. Hugh Fullerton publishes that article in December 1919. And then September 29th, 1920. Roughly a year after the World Series, the story breaks. And Bobby, if you could read the story from the Chicago Tribune, please.
BobbyYou got it. Headline. Two Sox Confess. Eight indicted. Inquiry goes on. Subhead. We threw World Series, Seacott, Jackson Admit. To indict gamblers today is plan. Following the indictment of eight White Sox players on a charge of conspiracy to commit an unlawful act, in relation to the throwing of the 1919 World Series games with Cincinnati, and the confessions of two of them, Eddie Seacott and Joe Jackson, the grand jury got ready last night for more indictments today. The jurors intend today to find the missing link, the man who was the go-between. The man who gave the gamblers' money to the ball players. This man is said to be Abe Attell, a former prize fighter. Unquote.
ShannonVery good. Thank you, Bobby.
BobbyYou are most welcome.
ShannonEvidence pointing towards Rothstein is circumstantial and it's hearsay. It's very muddy by design by Rothstein. Very clever. But here are two links that point to Rothstein's possible involvement. So a former White Sox pitcher and gambler named Bill Burns approaches Rothstein about fixing the series. And Rothstein turns him down. Rothstein feigns outrage, fixing baseball, especially the World Series. That's heresy. Baseball is religion to Americans. Unthinkable. No way. What a disgusting offensive ask. So Burns, who first approaches him, is then introduced to Abe Attell, who you just mentioned in the article that you read as being the link to the players and the gamblers. Now Abe Tell, he did know Rothstein. He's a former featherweight prize fighter and occasional bodyguard for Rothstein. And for fights to be fixed, you know, that was kind of like people knew that fights were fixed.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
ShannonAnd so it would make sense that Rothstein and Abatel knew each other. Abe Tell would use Rothstein's name for clout, for Street Cray. So Abatel tells Burns, who is a former pitcher for the White Sox, first guy who approaches Rothstein. Abatel says, Rothstein has changed his mind. He wants to do the fix. Meanwhile, there's a second scheme happening with associates that are much closer to Rothstein. And those are two of his associates named Nat Evans and Sport Sullivan. They're much closer to Rothstein than Abe Ottell is. And they have a connection to Chick Gandalf. And Chick Gandal is the first baseman for the White Sox, currently playing for the White Sox. And Gandal is the connection then to the White Sox players. Gandal would get the largest payout. So there are a few different gambling groups at work here. It's complicated, it's difficult to unwind. You need a Carrie Matheson board with strings to sort it. And it's all hearsay and unreliable testimony. There's nothing definitive that can be traced to Rothstein. But $100,000, which is about $2 million in 2026 dollars, there are only a handful of people that would have that kind of cash. And Rothstein is one of them. The fixing was not Rothstein's idea, but Rothstein probably knew about it, and he probably put up most of the money that paid off the White Sox players. A trial happens in August 1921. And all eight players are acquitted. But the very next day, newly appointed baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis bans them from baseball for life.
BobbyYeah, that's a that's a name right there. Somebody you don't mess with. Kennesaw Mountain Landis.
ShannonThat's right.
BobbyI'd forgotten I'd I learned watching Ken Burns baseball that he had been a judge.
ShannonMm-hmm.
BobbyAnd that's why he was brought in for this, right?
ShannonMm-hmm. Because he was believed to be a clean judge.
BobbyYeah, and he's gonna he's gonna squash all this nonsense.
ShannonIf anybody can clean up baseball, it's gonna be Kennesaw Mountain Landis.
BobbyYeah.
ShannonSo Seacott, who gave that teary confession to the grand jury, he received $10,000 for the fix, which is about $200,000. He was making about $8,000 per year as salary. So somewhere between $150,000, $180,000 in 2026 dollars. So an upper middle class salary, but nothing like what players make today.
BobbyRight. Not millions and millions of dollars.
ShannonThe highest paid player in baseball in 1919 was Ty Cobb, and he earned $20,000 from the Detroit Tigers. And this is about $386,000 in 2026.
BobbyYeah, great living, but nothing like today's baseball super wealthy stars.
ShannonThe highest paid player in baseball today is Juan Soto of the New York Mets. And in 2026, his on-field income was $47 million. Yeah. So for fixing the World Series, Seacot, he's getting just a little more than one year's salary. That doesn't seem worth it at all.
SPEAKER_03No.
ShannonBut there's a lot of anger on the part of the players because the owners of these teams were making so much.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
ShannonThey'd worked themselves up. Why can't they get a little bit?
SPEAKER_03We want a taste.
ShannonYeah.
SPEAKER_03That's all we're asking.
ShannonSeacot is getting little less than half of what Ty Cobb is getting, and Ty Cobb is the biggest star of the time.
BobbyMm-hmm. And maybe they think, well, this whole game is is rigged anyway in favor of the team owners, so why don't we do a little rigging of our own and get paid?
ShannonAnd there was talk that previous World Series had been fixed. So this isn't just some fluke. Right.
BobbyMaybe the biggest. And it was they were caught.
ShannonAnd they confessed.
BobbyAnd maybe the attempt was so blatant because the White Sox had been so heavily favored to win, right?
ShannonYes, you are exactly right.
BobbySo fans started saying, hey, this is like absurd.
ShannonGame one, the Cincinnati Reds got nine runs, and the Chicago White Sox one run. That's a big disparity. So yes, you're right. People could see it in real time. Now, in our last episode, Bobby, we talked about the murder of Herman Rosenthal, a small business owner based in New York City. He operated an illegal casino on 45th Street in the middle of the tenderloin. Manhattan's most lucrative neighborhood for vice. And I am going to bring these two stories together, Bobby, because Rothstein plays a role in both.
BobbyDoes he?
ShannonHe does. The Chicago White Sox, who were then dubbed the Black Sox. This scandal, this trial of the players was called Baseball's Trial of the Century. So we get to add it to our running list of trials of the century, because the Becker Rosenthal case, also a trial of the century. Feels good to add to the list, doesn't it?
BobbyYeah, I mean, it's what happens with trials of the century, as we discussed last episode. I think at least this time, you know, it's every every trial is the trial of the century.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
BobbyBut at least if they're calling it baseball's trial of the century, I think I can get more behind that. Can buy that, buy into that.
ShannonYes. Blanket, 20th century's baseball's trial of the century. I can't name another trial of the century surrounding baseball.
BobbyI can't either.
ShannonSo I feel comfortable that this is an apt use of trial of the century.
BobbyYeah, and and this was the only trial or baseball scandal that was covered in Field of Dreams. That was made in, I don't know, the late 80s. So if it wasn't in there, it's probably didn't happen.
ShannonThat's a great point. Great point. Kevin Costner.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
ShannonWere you aware in the late 80s and 90s? Were you aware of how big a sex symbol Kevin Cosner was?
BobbyYes. Um, because I remember my mom and sister went to go see dances with wolves, and when they came back, they were giggling because they had seen his buttocks, his spare buttocks in that film.
ShannonSo hours later they were still giggling about seeing a butt?
BobbyYeah.
ShannonI get it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
ShannonProbably not a lot of butt in film before that time.
SPEAKER_05Mm-hmm.
ShannonIt does feel good to see a man's butt in a film though. It does.
BobbyYeah. Why?
ShannonWell, because we see so many breasts.
BobbyMm-hmm.
ShannonThat to see a man's butt, to see a man's penis, that is really wonderful. In a and a step towards parody.
BobbyUh-huh. And I guess maybe at that time. Well, now you see penises and butts all the time. Male.
ShannonAll the time.
BobbyButts, female butts.
ShannonPerhaps we can thank Kevin Costner for being a trailblazer.
BobbyYeah, it was sort of a he was.
ShannonAs far as butts.
BobbyI guess we're now living in a Cosnerian world. Right?
ShannonI don't know. Are we post-Cosner? Because now there's so many male butts?
BobbyPost-Cosnerian world. That's what we're in, yeah. Yeah.
ShannonI feel I feel comfortable saying that. Yes. Post-Cosnarian world.
BobbyI have no no doubt about it. We are living in a post-Cosnerian world.
ShannonCase closed. It's not a free debate.
BobbyIt's as simple as that. End of story. End of statement.
ShannonLet's recap the Becker Rosenthal affair that we talked about in last episode. In April 1912, the NYPD raids a three-story townhouse casino in the Tenderloin district of Manhattan. The casino is owned and operated by bookmaker Herman Rosenthal, who was kind of like a mid-level guy. Graft ran rampant in New York City. And any vice operator knew that even though they were making regular payoffs to police, at some point he or she would have to have their establishment raided. This was just the cost of doing business. So Rosenthal's casino gets raided. But what makes him so angry is that his establishment was stormed by police and forced to close. And the police lieutenant in charge of the raid was Lieutenant Charles Becker. And Lieutenant Charles Becker was Rosenthal's business partner in the casino. Rosenthal had refused to pay off Becker's boss, the inspector of the tenderloin. So Rosenthal and his casino becomes a target. Becker can't hold off his boss, who is ordered a raid any longer. Rosenthal is livid. And he's also reckless. And he goes to the press and they publish his accusations. And New York's district attorney, Charles S. Whitman, sits down with Rosenthal on July 15th, 1912. And Rosenthal gives District Attorney Whitman details of the pervasive graft protecting New York City's vice operators and the payoffs that had cushioned NYPD pockets for years and years and years. Their meeting lasts, well, into the evening, and Whitman tells Rosenthal, we're going to pick this back up tomorrow morning. Come to my apartment at 7 a.m. tomorrow. Go home. Do not go out, Rosenthal. You have a large target on your back. Rosenthal ignores Whitman's advice. And we know from our last episode that he ends up at the Hotel Metropole. But Rosenthal makes a stop between D.A. Whitman's office and the hotel metropole that night. He stops by the home of the gambling house operator, fixer, and financier Arnold Rothstein. Uh-huh. And Rothstein lays in to Rosenthal. He says, You're gonna ruin everything for everyone. And he tells him to get out of town. Rosenthal says, no, no, look, I'm not gonna name anyone. I just want to ruin things for Lieutenant Becker. And then Rosenthal asks Rothstein if he could lend him some money for rent. Rothstein tells him, no. If you want money, Rosenthal, you can get it from the DA. Rothstein suspected that Rosenthal would not live long enough. To spend any cash that he gave him. And Rothstein was right. Herman Rosenthal heads to the Hotel Metropole. The Hotel Metropole was backed by Tammany power broker Big Tim Sullivan. And the casino at the Metropole is managed by Arnold Rothstein.
BobbyHe's got his hands everywhere.
ShannonAnd Rosenthal shows up that night with a stack of newspapers. The papers have published Rosenthal's expose and his claims that police lieutenant Becker was his silent partner in his gambling business. Rosenthal's reading his own coverage. This guy.
BobbyYeah, he's he's he's a piece of work. He's just asking for it at this point.
ShannonRosenthal has a steak and a few drinks. A piano player is playing some ragtime tunes. But there's this feeling in the air at the hotel metropole. A dread that something is about to happen. No one is engaging with Rosenthal. And outside, police are starting to tell passers-by to go a different direction. And at 1 40 a.m., someone, witnesses could never agree on who, but someone asked Rosenthal to step outside. Rosenthal pays his bill, it was 80 cents. He leaves a dollar tip. Very nice.
BobbyVery generous.
ShannonAnd he steps outside. A gray Packard with gunmen from the Lennox Avenue gang pulls up. And Rosenthal receives three shots to the head and one to the neck. The gunmen would later be identified as Diego Frank, Gip the Blood, Lefty Louie, and Whitey Lewis. They will be indicted, put on trial, found guilty, and end up in the electric chair at Sing Sing. And Rosenthal's silent business partner, Lieutenant Charles Becker, will also be indicted as the man who ordered the hit on Rosenthal. He will be tried, found guilty, retried, found guilty again, then executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing in 1915. And this murder, though, it was incorporated into a popular piece of fiction. The Great Gadsby. Wow. There is a character named Meyer Wolfsheim, and he is based on Arnold Rothstein. So I'm gonna play you a clip from the 1974 film starring Robert Redford as Jay Gadsby, Sam Waterston as Nick Caraway, Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan, Bruce Dern plays Tom Buchanan, and Howard DeSilva is the actor that plays Meyer Wolfsheim. And the screenplay is written by Francis Ford Coppola.
BobbyOh, how about that?
ShannonHow about that? Now in this clip, Gadsby introduces Nick to his friend Meyer Wolfsheim based on Rothstein. I've heard people say Meyer Wolfsheim and Meyer Wolfsheim.
BobbyYeah, I was just wondering what's the proper uh pronunciation.
ShannonI chose Wolfsheim.
BobbyMade a choice. Stick with it, yeah. That's right.
ShannonIn this scene, they're eating lunch at a fancy, expensive restaurant, and Wolfsheim talks about the murder of his friend Herman Rosie Rosenthal.
SPEAKER_01This is a nice restaurant, but I like across the street better. It's too hot over there. Hot small, yes, but full of memories. What place is that? The old Metropole. Filled with faces now, dead and gone. Filled with friends. Gone now forever. I can't forget as long as I live the night they shot Rosie Rosenfall there. He was sticks to Mr. Table. Rosie had eaten and drunk a lot the whole evening. A waiter came over to him with a funny look, says somebody wants to talk to you outside. All right, says Rosie, starts to get up. I pull him down, SC. Let the bastards come in here if they want you. But don't you so help me make a move out of this room. It was four o'clock in the morning. If he raised the blinds, we could have seen daylight. Did he come? Sure he was. He turned the doorway. He says, Don't have the waiter take away my coffee. They were on the sidewalk, they shot him three times in the belly, and they drove away. Understand you're looking for a business connection, huh?
SPEAKER_02We'll talk about that later.
SPEAKER_01Yeah? This is a friend, so we'll talk about that some other time. Oh, I beg your pardon. I had a wrong man.
ShannonIn stories about gangsters, Bobby, I tend to imagine everyone being either 25, 45, or 65. So up and comers, they're 25. Mid-career guys doing well for themselves, they're 45. And then the boss is 65. How old do you think Rosenthal, Rothstein, and Becker are in this story?
BobbyIn this story. I'm gonna say Rosenthal is mid-career, 45. Rothstein, 45. Becker 65.
ShannonHerman Rosenthal was 28.
BobbyOh, okay.
ShannonArnold Rothstein was 30. Charles Becker, 41.
BobbyOkay. Wow, I was way off.
ShannonBut I didn't think Rosenthal and Rothstein were that young.
BobbyYeah.
ShannonThat's young.
BobbyVery young.
ShannonTwenty-eight and thirty?
BobbyYeah, and Rothstein's already like.
ShannonA millionaire?
BobbyYeah, like the sort of professor of crime.
ShannonYeah.
BobbyMoriarty of his time?
ShannonYeah.
BobbyCause yeah, Rosenthal, I was thinking like maybe he's a young guy who's kind of rash and isn't really thinking too clearly. He's letting his emotions and his his sort of anger drive him. But I still went with 45. I don't know. I guess I'm just like, you got your own casino, and doesn't that take a while? But no, I guess not.
ShannonSo Rothstein is interesting for many reasons, but his career spans these shifts that happen in New York City graft, gambling, vice, organized crime. Rothstein starts his gambling career as a teenager in 1890s New York City. And this is a time when the links between Tammany Hall and the police are scrutinized, specifically by the Lexow Committee, which we'll talk about in a moment. And this is the time when Teddy Roosevelt arrives as police commissioner and tries to reform the department. When the Becker-Rosenthal affair happens, Rothstein is 30 years old. He's made a lot of money in gambling, he's financing other gambling operations, and he's created a real name for himself. And the Becker-Rosenthal trial again shines a bright light on police graft. And again, there are calls for reform. And then Rothstein reaches the pinnacle of his power during 1920s prohibition, another shift in organized crime. And he becomes a mentor to up-and-coming gangsters, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel. This is when crime really gets organized, becomes more of a corporation, and Rothstein teaches them how to do it. He should be talked about more.
BobbyHe should be a very interesting figure.
ShannonRothstein is 13 years old. Charles Becker is 25 years old in 1894. And he is brand new to the force in 1894 when the Lexau committee gets underway. So, Bobby, if you could read from the book Rothstein by David Petrusia, he writes about how Charles Becker becomes an NYPD officer.
BobbyAbsolutely. Quote: Born in the Catskills in 1870, as a teenager, Becker moved to the Lower East Side's burgeoning German neighborhood. He worked at menial jobs, including as a bouncer in a huge Germanic beer hall, meeting the usual neighborhood characters: street tufts, gamblers, prostitutes, and Tammany politicians. Tammany liked him. He wasn't just physically imposing. His manner distinguished him from other bully boys. The wigwam admired him so much that in November 1893 it not only obtained his appointment to the force, it waived its usual fee. Unquote.
ShannonSo the wigwam is synonymous with Tammany.
BobbyMm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05Mm-hmm.
ShannonThe NYPD is predominantly Irish officers backed by the Democratic Tammany political machine. They had to like you, and you typically had to pay to get in.
BobbySo a big deal to be waived a fee, right?
ShannonExactly. In 1894, the state senate is run by Republicans, and there are calls for police reform and investigations into vice. State Senator Clarence Lexau chairs the committee that will look into police and political corruption, and public hearings begin in March 1894. Witnesses will testify to police demands for payment from saloons, brothels, gambling houses, but bombshell testimony from a police captain is given. And it comes from Captain Max Schmidt Berger. We've met Max Schmidtberger in our May Day episode. He was in Union Square during the May Day rally.
BobbyHe becomes chief, right? He's chief during that time and he was exhorting his men not to club people.
ShannonThat's right. And he was in the Sinclair v. Rockefeller episode, providing protection at the Rockefellers Baptist Church, protection from the socialists and the anarchists that were protesting the Rockefellers.
BobbySo this is a big deal that someone who is a captain at this point is breaking the blue wall of silence, right? Isn't that what what it's called?
ShannonYes.
BobbyAnd somehow later still manages to become chief. I guess he had the right political connections.
ShannonExactly. So I am going to read from the New York Herald, published December 22nd, 1894. Quote: Police Captain Max F. Schmidtberger of the Tenderloin Precinct, who was under $15,000 bail on the charge of having extorted $500 from Agent Forget of the French steamship line, and whose name has been mentioned in connection with many other corrupt transactions, appeared before the Lexao committee yesterday, made a full and elaborate confession of his own corruption, and accused many other police officials. He swore that he had paid percentages of the blackmail collected by him monthly in five of the six precincts in which he has been in command. He charged in general that every captain levies blackmail and divides the blackmail with the police inspectors, and that promotions in the force, his own case being an exception, are procured only by purchase or through political influence, and in particular that Captain Martin's captaincy had cost him $14,000. Unquote. So not only do you have to pay your way into the force, you have to pay for promotions. So hopefully you can collect a good amount of graft so that you have the capital to buy your promotion.
SPEAKER_01See.
ShannonBobby. We are going to read some of Schmidtberger's bombshell testimony. And I'm going to play Captain Max Schmidtberger, and you are going to play John W. Goff. And Goff is the anti-corruption lawyer and chief counsel for the Lexow Committee. Now I've included a picture of John Goff.
BobbyMm-hmm. I wanted to see how handsome he was or was not. Yeah. Fairly handsome man, right?
ShannonI think you kind of resemble him.
BobbyOh, really?
ShannonYes, he he parts his hair at the exact same point as you part your hair.
BobbyYeah, you're right.
ShannonYou see it too.
BobbyClear as day.
ShannonIn this uh exchange that we're about to read, Bobby, Goff is questioning Captain Schmidtberger on some places of ill repute in the city, and questioning him on how these places are allowed to stay open, and who that protection money went to.
BobbyMm-hmm.
ShannonScene.
BobbyNow, Schmidtberger, the captain knew that all these places of ill repute flourished openly and flagrantly?
ShannonYes.
BobbyAnd there was no pretense by them of obeying the excise law.
ShannonNo, none.
BobbyAnd they were the resorts of thieves.
ShannonThose dives were the resorts of the thieves of the whole country who went there to meet prostitutes.
BobbyWas anything said among the members of the force why these places were allowed to run in open violation of the laws?
ShannonNothing was said, but it was perfectly well understood that they were allowed because they were protected.
BobbyNow, Captain Schmidtberger, tell us, to whom did all that money for protection go directly?
ShannonTo Captain Williams.
BobbyCould it have been possible for such places to be openly conducted without the toleration of the captain?
ShannonIt could not. End scene. So, Bobby. Schmidtberger names Alexander Clubber Williams. And he tells the committee that all the money is going up to him. Now, last episode, you may remember Clubber Williams is why the tenderloin is called the Tenderloin, the premier vice district of New York City. When he was appointed to the tenderloin, he said, quote, I've been living on Chuck's steak for a long time, and now I'm going to get me a little of the tenderloin. Clubber Williams accumulates a $500,000 fortune, which is $20 million in 2026.
BobbyThat's that's that's a nice fortune. Didn't know the civil service uh could be so lucrative.
ShannonClubber Williams was investigated 18 times, and he won acquittal 18 times, and Schmidtberger was Clubber Williams' bad man. Williams will end up retiring in May of 1895, five months after Schmidtberger's testimony. Schmidtberger, as we know, remains on the force, and he will be an honest cop during this reform era, but then when Tammany takes power again, he'll become corrupt again. Oh, okay. And his bad man will become none other than Lieutenant Charles Becker. And Chief Counsel John Goff of the Lexile Committee, he will go on to become the judge presiding over Charles Becker's first trial in 1912.
BobbyUh-huh.
ShannonSo many connections.
BobbySo many.
ShannonWe will continue on with Schmidtberger and Clubber Williams and Graft and Reform and 1890s New York in our next episode, Bobby. And we will get to TR as police commissioner. I said we would get to him in this episode. I just couldn't make it happen. There was too too much stuff. Too many jewels of information about Rothstein and Can I get you on record as committing to covering him in the next episode? Can we consider this the record?
BobbyYes. Yes, we can.
ShannonOkay. All this and more next time on that American Century. Sources for today's episode include Rothstein by David Petrusha, Satan Circus by Mike Dash, The Society for American Baseball Research, InfamousNewYork.com, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquire, and The New York Times. For a list of all sources, please see the show notes for this episode.