PAINTING OVER, The Widow and the Drunken Artist

I guess it was inevitable that once these two met, their relationship would turn from unpleasant to downright ugly. Widow Jane Leland Stanford was a rigid, humorless, devoted temperance adherent who worshiped a vengeful God. She was described by an acquaintance as a lady with “ an assured position in the social and financial world."  In other words, she was born with a stick up her bum, and after the death of her husband, she exchanged the wood for steel. Her antagonist, Ashley David Montague Cooper, was what was once politely called a bohemian, but more accurately he was a hedonist, an inveterate gambler, a constant drunk, a profligate womanizer, and an atheist. He was also a very good painter. About the only thing these two agreed upon was that if there was a hell, then A.D. Cooper going there in a hand cart. And it was fitting that their relationship, such as it was, sank completely when it ran aground on her rocks.

Jane Stanford's jewelry collection was the guilt on the gilded age. During her lifetime she was known as the queen of diamonds, and her private hoard remains famous to this day because after her husband died in 1892 the United States government slapped a $15 million tax lien (half a billion in 2012 dollars) on his estate. Jane refused to pay even a portion of it, even though the drawn out legal battle threatened to destroy the memorial to her only child.

The story that Stanford University was founded when Harvard rejected Leland Stanford Jr. is a myth. The reality was that in 1884, when he was sixteen, the boy's doting parents rewarded Junior with a “grand tour” of Europe. It was while exploring the temples of Greece that the boy contracted typhus, and he died in Florence, Italy. The parents were heartbroken, and the little comfort Jane's husband could offer was to tell her, “Now, all of California will be our child”. He might have actually said that, as reason for founding the University that bares his name. Stanford University was supposed to be free for all qualified students, women admitted equally with men, and to “qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life.” And when the cold hearted tax collectors prevented Jane from transferring money to the university, Jane decided to sell her bling to keep the young university afloat. But first, she thought it would be a good idea to memorialize her donation. Consider it a sales pitch.

She carefully arraigned the 34 diamond studded tiaras, necklaces, cameos, bracelets, rings, ear rings, lockets, watches, diadems and other assorted brick-a-brack, on a red velvet piano cover, and had it photographed. And then, because the resultant black and white image (above) did not do justice to the $100,000.00 ($3 million today) collection, Jane decided to have the jewellery painted. In the spring of 1898 she hired the most talented (and expensive) painter she could find, Ashley David Montague Cooper. The idea of donating what she intending on paying Cooper, to the cash strapped university, never seems to have occurred to the lady.

By the time he was thirty, A.D. had already painted the President's official portrait – U.S. Grant. But his most famous painting was titled “Inquest on the Plains” and depicted a small circle of American buffalo in the snow, surrounding a dead Indian warrior. Subtle was not A.D.'s approach to art. Said a critic, “When he was good, he was brilliant; when he was bad, he was laughable.” Most of his darkly romantic western allegories were hanging in the finest homes from New York City to San Francisco. His studies of nude females, on the other hand, were hanging over most of the bars between San Francisco and his home and studio in Santa Cruz. He used them to pay off his own and his friend's bar bills. A.D. had many friends and he was generous to a fault. And that may have been why, when the messenger arrived from Jane Stanford, A.D. agreed to the climb up Nobb Hill to her 50 room San Francisco mansion.

The lady had a few rules. First, while he was working on the still-life of her jewelry, A.D. was to wear formal dress. Secondly, he was to arrive at work sober, and since no alcohol was allowed on the premises, he was to do no drinking on the job. To be certain that her rules were adhered to Jane's personal secretary, Bertha Berner, was to be in the room at all times. A.D. readily agreed, so Jane showed him the piano cover she had draped her jewelry upon, and the jewelry itself. To be honest, it did not seem like that complicated a job, a bit like asking Leonardo Da Vinci to paint a rumpus room. It wasn't as if the dowager was going to be looming over A.D. while he painted. The hedonist must have wondered, what could go wrong?.

What went wrong with A.D.'s plan was Bertha Berner. She was a slightly younger version of Jane Stanford; her hair locked down in a tight white bun, her bedroom and office adjacent to Jane's bedroom, upstairs. By A.D.'s second session with the hoard, once it was clear Bertha was not going away, A.D. snapped. According to Bertha, ““he rose … made a deep bow with a flourish, drew a flask from his pocket, and took a drink. Then he said, ‘Now you watch me put a little fire into that sapphire!’” Bertha probably reported this transgression to her mistress. But judging the work in progress, Jane decided to keep A.D. on the job and Bertha watching over the work..

Twice over the next few weeks A.D. became so inebriated Bertha had to be send him home. But climbing back aboard the wagon each time, he returned and forged ahead, memorializing this six foot by four foot record of wealth in every precise detail, until he had finished. A.D. was paid and discharged, and the painting hung in Mrs. Stanford's mansion's art gallery. For a few days it seemed the intrusion of the reprobate had been a mere bump in the broad serene calm which normally pervaded the Stanford mansion.

Then one morning a policeman knocked on the mansion's front door, delivering disturbing news. The officer reported to Bertha that a duplicate of the jewellery painting, this one on redwood, had appeared in the front window of a saloon in San Jose. And worse, the items depicted were prominently identified on the canvas to be the property of Jane Leland Stanford. It was like an advertisement for any thieves looking for a new target. A.D. had even showed the chutzpa to have boldly signed the copy.

What Jane Stanford supposedly said was recorded by her faithful servant Bertha. "What a sad thing,” she supposedly said. “All that talent, dulled by John Barleycorn.”  She thereupon dispatched a servant and the police officer via the San Francisco, San Jose, Monterrey Railroad to retrieve the copy of her painting. A little cash smoothed the transfer of the art from the saloon's window into the servant's hands, and it can be assumed that some silver also made its way into the police officer's pocket. Three hours later the copy was in Jane's hands, and promptly destroyed. And in any normal household that would have been the end of the entire affair.

It was not ended for Jane because, first, as a temperance supporter she had been made a laughing stock in front of her Nobb Hill sophisticates. And secondly, when Jane traveled to London to sell her jewels, she learned the unpleasant lesson all jewelry owners must eventually learn, about the difference between an insurance value of diamonds and the market value. Diamonds, it turns out, are for forever only until you try to sell them. Jane found buyers for only about ten of the jewels in the painting. Still that was enough to endow the University with $20, 000 a year to buy new books for the library. The fund is still being used for that purpose today, and is called “The Jewel Fund”. Also immediately upon her return to San Francisco Jane had A.D.'s original painting taken down from her gallery and placed in storage. The queen of diamonds found it too painful anymore to gaze upon her jewels. The next year, 1898, the Supreme Court ruled for the Stanford estate, and Jane no longer had to sell her diamonds.

A.D.'s original painting stayed in the basement of the Stanford Nobb Hill mansion until Jane's death in 1905. The old lady died while hiding out in Hawaii. She was convinced that someone was trying to poison her. The Hawaiian police suspected strychnine, but most people considered that nonsense. Jane had left Bertha $15,000 ( half a million today) and a house. Meanwhile the vast majority of Jane Stanford's estate, about $40 million (over a billion in today's dollars) went to the institution which bears her only son's name, Leland Stanford Junior University.

Ashley David Montague Cooper continued on his road to perdition, unimpeded by public disapproval or personal regret until 1919, when at the age of 62 “grey-haired, but stalwart and erect” the old reprobate married 36 year old Charlotte George. The couple shared five happy years together until A.D. died of tuberculosis, in September of 1924. Presumably he was exhausted. His painting of "Mrs. Stanford's Jewel Collection" was brought out of hiding after her death. Now considered "one of the most extraordinary still-lives of our time"  it hangs in Cantor Arts Center on the Stanford University campus. 

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PROTECTIVE RETROBUTION - First War of Empire

I don't believe William Walter Grayson (above)  loved war. He used the Spanish American War to escape Nebraska, as any 23 year old might. But because of what he called the “damn bullheadedness” of his commander, sometime after eight on the evening of Saturday, 4 February, 1899, Private Grayson found himself on a three man patrol in the Manilla barrio of Santa Mesa. It was dark, it was hot, it was humid, and it was dangerous. Grayson and his fellow volunteers from Company D suspected they were being used as cannon fodder for the dreams of politicians and generals 10,000 miles away. And they were right.

When most Americans think of the Spanish American War they think of Teddy Roosevelt charging up Cuba's San Juan Hill, and perhaps Commodore George Dewey telling the captain of his flagship, the USS Olympia, “You may fire when ready, Gridley”,  just before sinking the Spanish Asiatic fleet.  But most remain blissfully ignorant of the 14 year long “Philippine Insurgency”, a war in all but name. It was the test case for an unnecessary war sold to Congress as a crises, a protracted war sold and resold to voters as being on the verge of victory, a war conducted “to Christianize and civilize” the one million Filipinos the Americans killed, a war whose American blood was spilled almost in secret by a small professional army, a war in which the use of torture was endorsed by American commanders and politicians, and a war that is rarely remembered in America, despite the lessons it offers about the dangers of arrogance and ignorance.

In the dark, Private Grayson heard voices speaking Spanish and Tagalog. Being born in England and raised in Nebraska, William had no idea what was being said in either language. And the version of subsequent events handed out to the press under his name has no more validity than the stories invented in the name of Private Jessica Lynch during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.. The only part of Grayson's story that seems plausible is that, hearing voices, his patrol “went to ground”,  Grayson (above, posing on the scene, days after the event) called out “Halt!”. The response was a voice calling, “Alto!” Grayson repeated his command, as did his Filipino doppelganger. It seems evident that neither speaker understood the other, so Private Grayson fired into the dark, setting off a general exchange of gunfire that only proved the existence of several thousand frightened, half trained young men on both sides. American casualties were two men from a South Dakota company, probably killed by friendly fire. Filipino dead were uncounted.

Washington's favorite joke about President William McKinley (above, right) was that his mind was like his bed – every morning someone had to make it up for him, before he could use it. But once his mind had been made up by the “Manifest Destiny” wing of his cabinet, he endorsed it, with his “Benevolent Assimilation” policy, intended, he said, “to win the confidence, respect, and affection of...the Philippines....” 

However the "young, handsome, patriotic, and brave."Filipino leader Emilo Aguinaldo, having helped the Americans throw out the Spanish, did not like the idea of “assimilation” by anybody. In June of 1898 elections were held for the First Philippine Republic and Aguinaldo was named its first President. In response the Americans told the democratically elected Filipino President his soldiers would be fired upon if they tried to enter the capital of their new country. And that was what all the shooting was about on 4 February.

The American General Elwell Otis rejected negotiations with President Aguinaldo, saying  “fighting, having begun, must go on to the grim end.” This Second Battle of Manila, as it was called, resulted in the Filipino line being smashed, at a cost of 55 American dead. Officially, there were 238 Filipino dead, but a British witness disagreed:. “This is not war; it is simply massacre and murderous butchery." Only one Filipino soldier in three had a gun. The Americans soldiers, who referred to their opponents as “niggers” and “savages”, piled the Filipino dead into breastworks, and called the battle a “quail shoot”. One wrote home that “It was more fun than shooting turkeys.”

The open fighting pushed the vote, two days later in the American Senate, to ratify the Paris Treaty selling the Philippians to America for $20 million,  by one slim vote over the 2/3 majority the Constitution required. Teddy Roosevelt wrote, “I am more grateful than I can say....partly to the Filipinos. They just pulled the treaty through for us.” America was now committed to a war of conquest in east Asia, conducted so far by men like Private Grayson.

On 31 March, 1899, Private William Grayson was hospitalized, suffering from malaria and exhaustion, stomach upset (ulcers) and over exertion – in, short combat fatigue. When he was released two months later he was reassigned as a cook, out of combat. And then in July Grayson and all the volunteers were shipped home for discharge. Grayson left the service in San Francisco, where, on 10 October of 1899, he married Clara Francis Peters. He found work as a house painter and then an undertaker, and never sought to cash in on his fame as the man who started a war.

Throughout the summer of 1899, Otis's second in command, General Arthur MacArthur,  led 21,000 professional soldiers in a brutal drive north across Luzon. The American Red Cross noted “the determination of our soldiers to kill every native in sight”. Americans took no prisoners, and everyone, men, women and children, not actively working for the Americans was treated as an enemy combatant. 

Entire villages were murdered. In November, at Otis' hint, the American government declared the “insurrection” was over. Victory parades were held. But many of the professionals had doubts. To McArthur's subordinate, General Shafter,  it was a matter not of morality, but practicality. He wrote, “It may be necessary to kill half the Filipinos in order that the remaining half ...may be advanced to a higher plane of life than their present semi-barbarous state affords."  In other words, we were killing them for their own good.

By the start of 1900, General Otis was forced to ask Washington for more men. That summer, with American troop levels secretly reaching 75,000,  Otis was relieved by General McArthur, who decided to change strategies. Just as the Americans in 2005 judged the capture of Saddam Hussein would end the rebellion, the Americans now concentrated on capturing President Aguinaldo. Both assumptions, made a century apart, were wrong.

The American press were so controlled that during the summer and fall of 1900, it was the soldier's letters home that broke the story of American atrocities against the Filipino people. "On Thursday, March 29th ... eighteen of my company killed seventy-five nigger bolomen and ten of the nigger gunners .... When we find one who is not dead, we have bayonets …" 

Lieutenant Grover Flint wrote home to describe the standard method of obtaining information. “A man is thrown down on his back...and then water is poured onto his face down his throat and nose from a jar; and that is kept up until the man gives some sign or becomes unconscious...His sufferings must be that of a man who is drowning, but cannot drown.”

In April, 1901 President Aguinaldo was finally captured. But even after the prisoner signed a loyalty oath to the Americans, the ambushes and acts of sabotage continued, as did the brutal American responses . General McArthur took the hint and resigned, returning to a hero's welcome, and to assure the voters that operations in the Philippians were : "the most legitimate and humane war ever conducted on the face of the earth.”   

It was possible to claim American moral superiority because American atrocities not mentioned in official American reports, did not officially happen.  However some leaked through. It was under General Adna Chaffee,  that the American civilian governor of Abra Province described the new “depopulation campaign”:  Residents in entire regions were ordered into “concentration camps”. Those who did not submit were assumed to be rebels. “Whole villages had been burned, storehouses and crops had been destroyed and the entire province was...devoid of food.”  Said an anonymous American congressman after a visit, “You never hear of any disturbances in Northern Luzon, because there isn't anybody there to rebel.” . The process was given the military title, “protective retribution.”'

The war would continue, year after year, atrocity after atrocity, declaration of victory after empty declaration.  In April of 1902 the Washington Post was driven to suggest, “ The fourth and final termination of hostilities two years ago....serves only to confirm our estimation...A bad thing cannot be killed too often.” Desperate to end the war,  General “Howlin' Jake Smith ordered his men to kill “Everything over the age of ten...Kill and burn, kill and burn...(this is) no time to take prisoners.” 

Read one report to headquarters, “The 18th regulars...under orders to burn every town... left a strip of land 60 miles wide from one end of the island to the other, over which the traditional crow could not have flown without provision.” A letter from a participant, published in the New York World, detailed what that meant, ending with the story of “...a mother with a babe at her breast and two young children at her side...feared to leave her home which had just been fired...She faced the flames with her children, and not a hand was raised to save her or the little ones. They perished miserably...She feared the American soldiers, however, worse than the devouring flames.”

President Roosevelt declared victory, again, on 4 July, 1902. And again, parades were held to celebrate the victory (above)  But, again,  in March of 1903, attacks against Americans and their native allies had so flared up that 300,000 Filipinos were forced at gun point back into concentration camps. In August of 1904 the American governor of Samar was asking for more soldiers. By 1907 those additional troops were still required. The last rebel leader, whose capture was supposed to end the war, was executed in 1912.  But the war went on, if at a reduced level, until the Japanese invasion in 1942. 

Meanwhile, the forgotten William Grayson (above) had come upon hard times. By 1914, the malaria and ulcers he suffered from had progressed to vomiting blood, and he was forced to apply for a pension. It was denied.  Said the bureaucrats at the Veterans Bureau , “no pecuniary awards are made by the government for extraordinary bravery in action.” . But Grayson could no longer work and was forced on public relief. Finally, after eight years of shabby treatment by the nation he fought for, whose empire he sacrificed his youth for,  in 1922 William Grayson was finally granted a small pension. The man who fired the first shot used to justify America's grab at an empire, died worn out and worn down, at the age of 64, on 20 March, 1941, in the Veterans Hospital in San Francisco.

Somethings never change.

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LITTLE GREEN HOUSE ON K STREET Chapter Four

I believe that houses are like the people who occupy them. If they remain standing long enough  they can become all things. First the little house on K street was a home,  and then it was a bordello and a bar, and then it sat empty for a few years. I mean, who would want to live in such an infamous den of inequity? That question was answered during the latter half of the roaring twenties, when 1625 K street became the home of various fraternities associated with George Washington University - the campus is one block south across Pennsylvania Avenue, between 24^th and 19^th Streets. But the frat parties came to abrupt end with the onset of the Great Depression.

One in four Americans lost their jobs. Those who still had a job saw their wages fall by almost half, at the same time that the price of food went up. Those who lost their home or apartment threw up shacks and shanties on vacant land and called them "Hoovervilles". Empty pockets turned inside out were called "Hoover Flags". There were literally millions of Americans in agony. Industrialist Henry Ford proclaimed that the Great Depression had been caused by “an era of laziness”, and President Hoover, from his government subsidized home three and ½ blocks south of the Little Green House, seemed to agree. But to the vast army of unemployed, that did not seem to be so much an answer as a justification as to why Ford's family was not going hungry like theirs. The District of Columbia in 1930 had a population of 607,000 people, and almost half of them had no regular income.

Still the town should have barely noticed when on 5 December, 1930 some 3,000 communists came from all over the eastern half of the United States to stage a “hunger march” in Washington. The march was badly organized. The timing was stupid. Two marchers died from exposure to the harsh winter weather, fifteen others came down with pneumonia, twenty with the flu. Still the government managed to overreact. There were more cops than marchers. Great sums had been spent to isolate the communists, far more than was spent in relief efforts. If the American Communists had been better organized, they might have posed a real threat to the capitalist system, because President Hoover decided the best capitalism could do was to encourage those with money to invest it. See if you think that Republican response sounds familiar. The capitalists did invest their American earned profits, but not in America.

In response to Hoover's pleadings, some investments were made. In 1931 the frat house at 1625 K street was remodeled into office space. But by then there was not much call for new office space, even in Washington D.C. The economy did not need old spaces given new names. It needed new purposes. The little Green house, now a little green office building, sat empty, waiting for something to happen.

In 1932 fifteen thousand well organized WWI veterans marched on Washington, petitioning their government for early payment of their long promised war bonuses. The money was supposed to be paid in 1945, but the men were hungry now -  their children were hungry now. But this time the government had the tools to respond to such a petition. This was why Washington had been established. The power structure called out their District of Columbia police force (above). Shots were fired. Two veterans were killed. A few cops were beat up. The Federal government decided that the problem was not that the working stiffs had been pushed to far, it was that not enough force had been applied to keeping them under control.

That “enough force” had a name – General Douglas MacArthur (above, left). Ordered to clear the “Bonus Army” from around Jenkin's Hill, the imperious MacArthur sent in tanks and troops with fixed bayonets and tear gas. Crowds of government workers shouted “Shame, shame” at the soldiers. But their shouts did not shame MacArthur.

Once the area around the capital had been cleared the General led his tanks across the river to attack the shanty town  where the desperate veterans had left their families (above). This had not been ordered. MacArthur did this on his own. The two infants who died in this assault were MacArthur's trophies, as were the hundreds of mostly women, who were beaten and bloodied in this lesson for the lazy.  Major Dwight David Eisenhower, who was the liaison with the district cops, described the burning of the shantytown as “pitiable.” MacArthur, who had pity only for injustices suffered by himself, was quietly retired and given a  job in the far off Philippines where it was to be hoped, he would never be heard from again.

In 'upper crust' Washington, “Old” Washington, the removal of General MacArthur was a defeat equal to surrender at Appomattox Court House. He had been one of them. And they never got over it, nor over him.  Still, with the incoming new administration there was reason for the wealthy denizens of Washington to hope. Wrote the Saturday Evening Post, “No occupants of the White House since Theodore Roosevelt had been so significantly favored as to birth and material circumstances (as FDR). Even the so called "Cave Dwellers" of Washington dropped their masks of indifference and cheered openly. At last the nation was to have a President and First Lady who have enjoyed exceptional privileges due to family position and wealth”.

The upper crust of Washington had acquired the nomen of The Cave Dwellers, because they were rarely seen outside their Kalorama neighborhood, to the North of K street. And the subsequent invasion of Washington by the army of Roosevelt's New Deal technocrats now destroyed “the incomparably delightful relationship between the official and social life” of Washington.

The small southern town inside Washington was suffering a revolution - as usual, hardest felt in the mundane things of life. In 1937 some 40,000 people jammed Washington's Union Station (above) twice a day, coming and going.  Suddenly, Washington (and the government) was going to work.

Federal clerks toiling away in unairconditioned offices now numbered a daily invasion of  200,000, since most could only afford to live outside the district. And then came the final insult.  In 1937 plans were announced to cut down 50 of the imported Japanese Cherry trees to make room for the planned Jefferson Memorial.

Outraged, a group of female Cave Dwellers chained themselves to the trees – their final line in the sand had been drawn at trees, not people. But it was a pitiable last stand. A brainy New Dealer came down in person and served the ladies coffee in china cups. He listened to their passion for tradition. He served them more coffee and promised to replant any trees damaged. Then he served them more coffee, and when the ladies slipped their chains to escape to the toilet, the trees were bulldozed, and the construction proceeded. (The trees were later replaced in a different place, but the ladies never forgave the insult.)

Like an ancient totem which had lost its magic, in early December of 1941 the Little Green House on K street was also bulldozed. The safe in the backyard, if it was ever there.  was plowed over as well. And in its place an 11 story steel frame concrete structure would rise. And like the rest of K Street in Washington, it would be filled with lobbyists.

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LITTLE GREEN HOUSE ON K STREET Chapter Three

I do not find it surprising that at midnight on 17 January, 1920 -  less than an hour after prohibition became the law of the land - 6 armed men stole $100,000 worth of “medicinal whiskey” out of two box cars parked unguarded on a Chicago railroad siding. Even at that early moment America's dream of becoming a more moral nation, drunkenly stumbled over the sobering reality that alcohol has never been a mere beverage.

In 1920, the first year of national prohibition,  35,000 doctors were granted permits to prescribe various potable forms of alcohol for their patients. That same year the company which distilled “Old Grand Dad” reorganized itself as The American Medicinal Spirits Company and kept right on distilling  “Old Grand Dad Whiskey” . In fact the distilling business was suddenly booming. In the first five years of prohibition, the distillation of hard liquors in America more than doubled.  And an Republican members of an administration elected on the promise of prohibition and a moral America, were, from day one, doing everything they could to profit from that graft.

As an article for “The Nation” magazine lamented in 1921, “In the U. S. are 27 warehouses in which 15,000,000 gallons (at a time) of liquor are stored. The liquor is private property held for legal sale as medicine..A system of permit withdrawals was devised by the enforcement officials..for each case (3 gallons) of liquor. It very soon became apparent that a vast amount of fraud was being perpetrated.” It was this fraud that filled the backyard bank of the Little Green House on K street. The author of that article was Roy Haynes.

Roy Asa Haynes (above) was the Prohibition Commissioner for the United States government, appointed by the brand new President, Warren Harding. And each  “Withdraw Permit” to release distilled liquor had to be signed by the Commissioner, Roy seemed the perfect choice for the newly created job, and was well known  in anti-saloon league politics. Except he was also a crook. And the process to corrupt prohibition began even before Harding left Ohio for Washington, D,.C.

"The Ohio Gang" set the price for each Withdrawal Permit at $15.00, per case. And the very first permit, for the withdrawal of some 2,000 cases of alcohol, was issued to the General Drug Company of Chicago, for which J.B. Kraffmiller, a railroad tank car builder,  was paid $20,000, cash.  He kept $6,500 for himself and passed on the rest to Howard Mannington, Harding's secretary,  at 1625 K Street. Mannington then divided it amongst the rest of the Ohio Gang, each member getting $2 per case. Even the General Drug Company got a dollar kickback, for the use of their good name. Because they took delivery on a mere fraction of what they signed for. 

Most of the booze supposed to to to General Drug was unloaded from government warehouses by the "bootleggers" who had actually bought the liquor and paid the bribes. They passed along this overhead to their customers,  who happily paid a dollar for a drink which the year before had cost them a quarter. And as Agent Means, in the basement of 1625 K street sang, my God, how the money rolled in. The very first year of prohibition, it is estimated, bootleggers made about $100 million dollars in profits. K street was not guilty of bootlegging. They were merely the facilitators.

The bag man in this facilitation was Jess Smith (above, right),  Attorney General Daugherty's (above, left)  “jovial, rotund, combination confidant and valet.” Agent Means described him this way; “Poor Jess, he was a typical city department-store floor walker, transplanted into alien aisles....at a complete loss. And how he loved clothes. He worshiped Daugherty with a dog-like devotion.” 

This seedy looking man in expensive suits was the go-between, shuffling between his boss and idol, Attorney General Harry Daugherty and the triumvirate at the little Green house.  Two or three times each week Jess would arrive at the Little Green House to deliver instructions and collect payoffs. He would then deliver the cash to an Ohio bank  owned by AG Daugherty's brother Milo. There the money would be laundered, Jess Smith kept everything straight in meticulous notebooks he carried on him, the “who”, the “how much”, the “for what”, and the “for whom.”

It was the sweetest deal in the history of K Street, and you just knew some schmuck was going to screw it up. The schmuck turned out to be the keeper of the backyard bank, Federal Agent Gaston Means (above). For him bountiful was never enough. In the winter of 1922 Means got his hands on several blank Withdrawal Permits. He forged Haynes' signature, and started selling them on his own.  It took very little time for word to get back to Daugherty. In February Daugherty suspended Means from the Bureau. .But Daugherty dare not fire Means or remove him from the Little Green House, because Means had all those file cabinets in the basement, stacked with names, dates and amounts.  

In the mid-term elections of November, 1922 the Republicans lost five seats in the House. The following January of 1923, the Democrats began to percolate over Republican scandals as a 1924 campaign issue. So in the spring of 1923 Daugherty was forced to go to President Harding and tell him of the trouble Means was causing. It was decided a sacrificial lamb would have to be offered up to the Democrats, and since it could not be Means, the clothes horse “poor Jess”, was tailor made for the role. "Poor Jess", with his notebooks might have also been a threat, but because of his devotion, Daugherty  was certain he would remain loyal.

On Tuesday morning, 29  May, 1923 Jess Smith played golf with Attorney General Daugherty, and while walking the course was informed that he had to leave Washington the next day, permanently. Jess did not take it well. Daugherty then proceeded to the White House, where he phoned another associate, Warren Martin, and ordered him to go the Wardman Hotel and stay with Jess until the poor man was out of town. At six the next morning, Martin was suddenly awakened in his room by a gunshot. He found the 61 year old Jess Smith, in his pajamas and a dressing gown, lying on the floor of Daugherty's bedroom. Smith's head was inside a wastepaper basket, a bullet through his brain. The weapon lay on the floor, inches from his fingers. There was no autopsy. His death was ruled a suicide by a friendly doctor. His meticulous notebooks and personal correspondence mysteriously disappeared.

Sixty four days later, on the second of August, President Warren G. Harding died of a heart attack in a San Francisco hotel. For a time the fact that "Silent Cal" Coolidge was now President made little difference to the business of K Street. But inevitably, when dealing with crooks, somebody eventually screwed things up, again.

This time it was Jess Smith's ex-wife, Roxy Stinson (above).  Cheated out of what she thought was her share of Jess' share of the ill gotten boot,  Roxy spilled her guts to a Senate committee investigating the Attorney General. On 28 March, 1924  - a presidential election year -  President Coolidge demanded Daugherty's resignation. Daugherty said, “ "I wouldn't have given 30 cents for the office of Attorney General, but I won't surrender it for a million dollars." Then he added, “I have no personal feeling against the President. I am yet his dependable friend and supporter." And then he resigned.

In June of 1924, Gaston Means (above) was sentenced to four years for perjury. Once out of prison he wrote a book, “The Strange Death of President Harding”. It was an instant best seller, a well written inventive concoction of half truths and fantasy. Still desperate for money, in 1932 Means claimed to have been contacted by the kidnappers of the Lindbergh baby.  He was arrested after stealing the supposed $100,000 ransom he handled, and sentenced (above) to fifteen years.  He died of a heart attack in Leavenworth Prison, in 1938.

Howard Mannington died in 1932, at the age of 64, of a "lingering illness". Henry Daugherty (above) was indicted in 1926 for accepting bribes. The jury deadlocked, 7-5 in favor of conviction. His second trial ended in another hung jury, this time 11 – 1 for conviction. But then the government gave up. In 1932 Daugherty published his own book, “The Inside Story of the Harding Tragedy.” It did not sell well. In October of 1940 Henry suffered two heart attacks which left him bedridden. He died in his own bed on 12 October, 1941, a very rich man. And that was the point..

Now, the Little Green House on K Street was vacant again. The graft it had contained certainly did not end. It just moved to a better neighborhood.

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