CALLING JUDGE CRATER Chapter Two

Theatrical lawyer William Klein reached the fulcrum of his life at 1:38 in the morning of Thursday, 11 May, 1905, while he was sleeping in a lower berth on a Pullman car of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Cincinnati Overnight Express - 25 years and one month before his cold dinner with Judge John Force Crater.  The train had departed Manhattan's Penn Station about 10:00 pm on Wednesday, and had reached Harrisburg, Pennsylvania well after midnight. 

"Willie" was traveling to Pittsburgh with his client, Samuel Shubert (above), youngest and most ambitious of the very ambitious Shubert brothers. Messrs. Shubert had already bought or built 13 theaters,.  And Bill Klein was the feisty, pushy, legal hammer which pounded opposition to the Shuberts into dust. Said one Broadway historian, "...to most people a litigation was a breakdown in human relations, to the Shuberts...it was an arm of diplomacy."

Leaving Harrisburg's red brick station at 1:30am, the Express was just picking up speed when it hit that fulcrum. A railroad work crew had hooked their train onto a westbound 100 car  freight. Then, the freight was shunted onto a siding above the Susquehanna River, in the Lochiel neighborhood just south of Harrisburg, to clear the track for the Cincinnati Express.  But the unexpected work train extended at least one car onto a curve beyond the "safe zone" of the siding,  And when the Express came barreling out of Harrisburg, picking up speed, its cars swaying as it rounded the curve, it slammed into that single car left hanging out. It was the work train's dynamite car. 

The Pullman cars disintegrated, their elaborate wooden interiors wrenching apart, the berths collapsing, trapping the sleeping passengers.  Kerosene lamps were smashed, and fires were sparked, and almost immediately there was a tremendous explosion, then another as the dynamite began to cook off. Quickly the entire freight began to burn, as did the Pullman cars. The 29 year old Sam Shubert was trapped in his burning bunk,  By the time another passenger freed him, he had deep burns over 100% of his body. His legs were almost charred. 

Wrote a local newspaper, "Horrific explosions shattered the darkness, lighting up the sky like daylight. Passengers were tossed from their berths. Some were flung from the cars. Others died horribly in the burning wreckage. "  Willie Klein was dragged semiconscious from his berth,badly burned on his face, hands and legs. 

The resulting devastation reduced the wooden passenger cars to splinters and kindling, more easily consumed by the flames.  More than a dozen passengers were burned to death. Almost another dozen would die within a few days. Most of the rest would be scarred for life.

There was little left of either train. And little left of many of the victims. Sam Shubert survived in agony, with burns over 100% of his body, until he mercifully passed into a coma and died at 9:30 the next morning. 

Their lawyer, William Klein would survive, but with scars. Because of that terrible wreck, there are  few pictures of Bill Klein, giving a hint at the internal scars.  For the rest of his life, Bill, a "Tall, craggy faced, rather homely man, would occasionally look at himself in a mirror and announce, “What an ugly bastard I am."   

Over the next quarter of a century, William Klein laid the bricks of  surviving Shubert brothers Lee and Jacob's  theatrical empire.  As Jerry Stagg noted in his detailed 1968  "The Brothers Shubert, “Not only did he fight their legal battles but he managed their contracts, negotiated them in and out of theater leases, helped smother their scandals, used every device of a devious man to further Shubert interests, and, as a by product, created a large part of today's theatrical law." But the center of that empire would forever be, Times Square.

In April, the year before Sam's death,  the New York City Council renamed Longacre Square as Time's Square, in honor of the new 25 story New York Times building,  which had just opened at the head of the space where Broadway formed a pair of X's across 8th and 7th Avenues.  But by the summer of 1930, three of tallest buildings in the world, and all more than double the height of the Times building,  were under construction in New York City. 

Begun first, in May of 1928,  was the 71 story tall Bank of Manhattan Building (above, center) at 40 Wall Street.  It towered  135 feet above the previous tallest building in the world, the Woolworth Building, completed in 1913.   The Bank of Manhattan had been created by Aaron Burr, authorized  in 1799 to bring clean water to thirsty New York City.  But Burr never invested in pipes.  Instead, by the May of 1930 completion of the bank's new tower, the corporation had become one of the biggest financial firms in the world. The Chairman of the Board who had overseen the previous 8 years of the corporation's growth, "Sunshine" Charlie Mitchell, was later deemed largely responsible for the Stock Market crash.  But the bank survived the Great Depression and thirty years later, would rename itself "CitiBank".  

The second tower, begun in September of 1928, at Lexington Avenue and East 42nd Street, was the  

1,000 foot, 77 story Chrysler Building. It was built by Walter P. Chrysler, intended to secure the future wealth of his children.  To show them  how wealth was secured, after the building was completed at the end of May 1930,  Chrysler refused to pay his architect.  This Art Deco monument to harsh business practices became the tallest building in the world until the completion of the third sky scrapper.  

In January of 1930 construction began for the Empire State Building, on Fifth Avenue, between 33rd and 34th streets. (Above, left. Chrysler building BG center. 40 wall Street, spiral top middle BG. Woolworth, far BG, behind Chrysler)  Rising 1,404 feet in just 410 days, the Empire States's 102 stories would be completed on 1 May, 1931, as a funeral monument to the excesses of the Roaring Twenties.  

There were lots of nails in the coffin of the Jazz Age,  of which the disappearance of Judge Crater was one.  But bigger by far was the November 1930 collapse of the Nashville financial firm of Caldwell and Company.  Because of an intricate tower of debts and loans, the Caldwell banks dragged down dozens of banks all across the south. And that set off a series of financial failures  in St. Louis and then Chicago, and the closing of 1,300 banks nationwide, which turned the panic of 1929 into the Great Depression which would last for a decade.  

Because of that deepening depression, and because of no nearby subway access, the Empire State building struggled to find tenants. The first full year of operation, the unrestricted view from the 86th story observation deck (above) took in as much money as the rent paid for the office space below it - $2 million. The tower became known as the "Empty State Building', just another tombstone to the excess of the Mad Decade.

The dominant Broadway producers  who had controlled American theater since 1910, A,L. Erlanger and E. F. Albee,  both died in March of 1930.  Rising to take their place now were the Shubert brothers,  J.J.(above left)  and Lee (above, right), They owned half the theatres on Broadway and  a  hundred others from London to Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles  In the words of  Howard Tubman,  for the New York Times in 1964, "...they were merchants in show business...They drove hard bargains...They made money—lots of it."  Even during the Great Depression.

During the 1930 season - beginning in August - there were 31 theaters with 500 or more seats, in the Broadway Theatre district - not counting vaudeville houses - all built since 1910  In 1930 they presented 230 shows, limiting the average run of a play to just 7 weeks.  Besides indicating the time it took for a show to "break even", this turnover required a constant stream of investors, always with new money they were willing to risk a loss in the hopes of the occasional big hit.

While the stock market was booming, Broadway investors were easy to find.  Come November of 1929, that source of cash suddenly evaporated.   But there were still three groups of professionals eager to invest in short run cash business ventures, to whom "finishing in the red" was not only profitable, but preferable - the bootlegger, the pimp and the gangster.

Broadway was not their business. But money made dirty because it came from an illegal  "Speakeasy" or a brothel could be used to rent stage lightning for "The Ballyhoo of 1930" or costumes for "The Dancing Partner".  Passing through these mundane exchanges, at a profit or a loss, it was now laundered. Clean and legal, it could return as kickbacks to the investor,  who also owned "a piece" of the lighting or costume rental company.  This was where the world of lawyers like Willie Klein and "Good Time" Joe Crater met the world of gangsters like Jack "Legs" Diamond and  Charles "Lucky" Luciano - backstage in the Broadway theatres, chasing showgirls.  

The women who survived in this crossover world for any length of  time, like upscale prostitute girlfriend of "Legs" Diamond, Vivian Gordon, and showgirl Sally Lou Ritz,  who dined with Judge Crater the night he disappeared, and the legions of other women who sacrificed themselves for the opportunity to dance or sing, could do so only as long as they were of interest to the men.  It was not about intimacy, you could even say it was rarely about sex. It was always about power.

Jerry Stagg provides a description - albeit solely male - of this junction of worlds from the Shubert Brother's perspective. In Chapter Six of "The Brothers Shubert" he writes, "Jake (above, left) was the "cruder" of the two, and legion are the tales of his assignations - in dressing rooms, in telephone booths, in corridors,behind scenery flats, and, of course, in hotel rooms and apartments. Lee (above right)...calculated that time was money, made his office a convenient place. To one side of it...he had an apartment complete with bedroom. To the other side of his office was a small meagerly furnished room...which also contained a bed.   A former secretary... remarked, "It was a traffic problem. You see the bedroom was for stars and important people. The room - well that just for girls. The room got most of the action."  

It was a dangerous and violent place to be. And in 1930, it was the only place in New York city, where women were tolerated close to power

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CALLING JUDGE CRATER Chapter One

It was just after nine on a warm humid Wednesday evening,  6 August 1930.  A few hundred feet from Eighth Avenue, two men and a woman walked out of Billy Haas's Chophouse, a restaurant at 332 West 45th street.  The trio paused for a few moments to chat on the narrow sidewalk.  Then one of them, a dapper, six foot tall middle aged man with an arrogant smirk, weighing a fit 185 pounds, wearing a dark brown double-breasted coat and matching trousers, a bow tie, a Masonic ring and a gold wristwatch, a pair of pearl-gray pinstriped spats and all set off by straw panama hat tipped at a jaunty angle, stepped into a waiting cab,  As the car headed into the night toward Ninth Avenue, Judge Joseph Force Crater (above) dropped off the face of the earth, never to be seen again. The social shockwaves would reverberate for years.

Just a year earlier, on 3 September, 1929 the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a measure of the $109 billion American economy,  hit an all time high of 381.17 points.  Unemployment was at 3%. Then came Black Thursday - 24 October - when "The Dow" dropped 38 points, followed by Black Tuesday -  29 October - when it lost another 30 points. Over those 5 days $11 billion, 25% of the nation's wealth, simply evaporated.  Unemployment jumped to 8.5%.  Thanks to a slight rebound, on 6 August, 1930, the Dow closing was at  234.38.  No one was panicking yet. The Wall Street experts expected a full recovery by the middle of 1931. 

Judge Crater was, until Jimmy Hoffa, “the missing-est man in America”, AKA, "The Most Missingest Man in New York".  One biographer has described him as a man with multiple personalities:  He was a respected and successful lawyer - earning $75,000 a year, the modern equivalent of a million dollars. He was also a talented pianists, a Tammany Hall politician, and a devoted husband.  But he was also “Good Time Joe”, who under the sad pseudonym of "Joe Crane" and displayed a penchant for liquor and endless hunger for showgirls. After he disappeared, rumors said he had committed suicide or (more likely) run off with a show girl, or that he had died in bed with a prostitute or was killed for reneging on a debt.

After he was reported missing an old prospector and a country store owner (above, left) reported seeing him prospecting for gold east of San Diego, California.  He was also reported shooting craps in Atlanta, on a steamer in the Adriatic and running a bingo game in North Africa.  Elevator operators, responding to call lights on vacant floors, would amuse their riders by sticking their head out and asking, " Judge Crater?" Theatrical producers would spice up a dull hotel lobby scene by adding a bell boy wandering about, calling, "Phone call for Judge Crater. Judge Crater call your office."  Groucho Marx's best exit line for a burlesque routine was to announce, "I'm going out to look for Judge Crater".  But for all the hoopla over his disappearance, nobody even reported him missing for three weeks.

Joseph Force Crater and his wife  Stella, spent the July of 1930,   as they had most summers during their 14 years of marriage, at their cabin ten miles north of Augusta, Maine, in the pretty little village of Belgrade Lakes (above).  The Supreme Courts - or trial courts -  of New York were out of session at the time,  and the newly appointed Judge only had to make 2 trips back to the city that summer. Once in the third week of July, and again in the first week of August, after a phone call.

The judge (above, left) left on Sunday, 3 August, telling Stella he had to go back this time just for a day or two to “straighten those fellows out”.  But he promised to be back in Maine by her birthday, Saturday, 9 August.  In fact he had already ordered her present, a new canoe.

Joe took the overnight train to New York City, arriving on the afternoon of Monday, 4 August, 1930 at Grand Central Station (above), just in time for the start of a humid heat wave of ninety plus temperatures.

Joe went immediately to their two bedroom co-op at 40 Fifth Avenue where he cleaned up and told the maid she could take a few days off.  But he asked her to return on Thursday, 7 August to clean up after he had left again for Maine.

That night Judge Crater took in a Broadway show and then had dinner at the Abbey Club.  It was a new speakeasy in the basement of the Hotel Harding at 205 West 46th Street near 8th Avenue, The popular emcee was an openly gay drag queen, Gene Malin (above), and The Abbey was a notorious gangster and "pansy" bar,  as well as a Tammany Hall hangout.  It was just another example of the open social horizons about to be crushed by the economic depression already tightening its grip on people's throats. On Tuesday Joe stopped by his office in the Foley Square Courthouse. He then had lunch with 2 Appellate Court Judges he had argued in front of, Then he stopped by his stock brokers' office where he instructed him to cash out 2 accounts. Late into the evening he played poker with friends, probably at the Abbey Club, again. 

At about 11:00 am on Wednesday, 6 August,  Crater returned to the Foley Square Courthouse (above), where he began collecting files, eventually filling 6 cardboard folders.  He also ordered his secretary Joseph Mara,  to collect 2 checks from his stock broker and cash them at the bank. The total was $5,150 in cash.  He left with the files and the cash in two locked briefcases and the 6 cardboard files, heading for his Fifth Avenue apartment.   

After showering ,Judge Crater then caught a cab for dinner at a times square restaurant  called Billy Haas’ Chophouse, with his friend, the successful theatrical lawyer William Klein and the 22 year old showgirl Sally Lou Ritz (above, right).  Sally was one Crater’s mistresses, as well as Klein's. But for this evening Bill was acting as  Joe's "beard.  The trio ate cool lobster cocktails and cold chicken for dinner.

The judge had ordered a single ticket for the 9:00 pm show at the Belasco Theater, at 111 West 45th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues. It was only a three block walk from the Chop House, a little over a half a mile.  For a fit man like Crater, an easy jaunt.

The show was "The Dancing Partner" staring Lynne Overman and Irene Purcell.  Joe Crater had seen the show during tryouts in Atlantic City just the month before.  According to Edward Cushing, the reviewer for the Brooklyn Eagle, the play and the production, "...lacks the grace, the deftness, the spontaneity that might have made it palatable...". 

The only piece of the play to draw favorable reaction from the audience was a single scene near the end, staged in the interior of an airplane. The set swayed side-to-side as clouds could be seen passing by the windows.  The effects got applause, the script did not.  So why did Judge Crater want to sit through this play again? 

His decision might have been influenced by the cost. The spreading depression had forced producers to slash prices to a dollar or even 50 cents for a balcony seat.  Joe also may have been interested in one of the actresses in the play.  But we will never know. Thanks to the lackluster production, and the deepening depression, the play would close on the first day of November after only 119 performances. But it lasted longer than the story that after the Chop House, Joe was going to the theater.

The story that Judge Crater left the Chophouse in a taxi was established when the New York City Police interviewed Bill Klein and Sally Ritz, 6 weeks later.  But that story simply made no sense. If Joe Crater was heading to the Belasco Theatre, at 111 west 45th street, he was only  1,100 feet away from the Chop House at 332 West 45th Street.  At the average walking speed of 3 miles an hour, or 264 feet per minute, on foot Crater would have arrived at the theater in less than 5 minutes.  And  anyone familiar with the mid-town Manhattan street grid would know, traffic on even numbered streets runs east, and on odd numbered streets runs west.  Why would the Judge take a taxi headed in the opposite direction from the theater?

Besides the price of the cab ride, there was the time factor. The curtain on "The Dancing Partner" had already gone up at 9:00pm. When they left the Chophouse, Judge Crater was already fifteen minutes late. Taking a taxi would have required him to travel a block west, then a block north or south, then five or six blocks east, then a block north before a final block westbound. With midtown traffic in 1930 being only slightly less crowded than it is today, that stop and go trip would have taken at least half an hour in a hot cab.  And although Joe tried to avoid exercise - Stella said he hated to swim - such a walk should have presented no challenge. 

When presented with this conundrum at their second interview, both Klein and Ritz insisted they had never claimed Joe took a cab. They had said that they took the cab. Joe walked. Bill Klein now said 

"He was standing near the restaurant, smiling. He said he was going to Westchester for a swim, and was going to Maine the next day to see his wife.”  When they last saw Judge Crater, they both now said, he was walking eastbound on West 45th Street. That was the most logical story. The most likely explanation for the confusion was that the police detectives had made a simple mistake in making their notes.  And it is possible it was a simple mistake.  As long as you forget the part about the man who hated to swim, said he was going to drive 30 miles to Westchester, New York,  to take a swim.  And as long as you accept a close friend like William Klein and an even closer friend like Sally Lou Ritz, both accepting that illogical statement from the Judge without question.

So a little after nine on this hot humid evening, the three friends, Joseph Crater, Sally Lou Ritz and Bill Klein stepped out of Billy Haas' Chophouse. They spoke for a few moments before Judge Crater disappeared into the night, on his way to the theatre. Either in a cab or on foot, Either to see a bad play he had already seen, or to drive 30 miles to take a swim. When he hated to swim.

Before he had even gone missing, something about Missing Person File # 13595, the disappearance of Judge Joseph Force Crater , was already very wrong. 

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THE IMPEACHMENT DEAL - Stanton V Johnson

I guess the modern politician whom Edwin Stanton reminds me of most is Dick Cheney. Physically they were very similar, and they shared the post of Secretary of War, albeit a century apart. Like Dick Cheney, Stanton was a Prima Donna who displayed a self indulgent affection for conspiracies, and practiced such hyperbole that “At certain crises…doubts of his sanity were widespread…”(p 286 – “Lincolns War Cabinet” Hendrick). . There were differences, of course. Stanton never actually shot anyone, but when he was a young man he did carry a large knife in his pants, which would have fascinated Freud had he been born an American.  In the end, the nicest thing I can say about Stanton is that he was a “rude and offensive” manic depressive lunatic on the right side of history.

When Stanton first set eyes upon Abraham Lincoln, in an 1857 Cincinnati courtroom, the bully loudly demanded, “Where did the long-armed baboon come from?” Eight years later Stanton lay literally sobbing on Lincoln’s deathbed. Lincoln was the only man who ever controlled Stanton, and it took a lot of his time. He called Stanton “my rock”,  which you can either stand upon or be tied to while you drown.  Or maybe you can just trip over it occasionally.  Lincoln admitted he spent most of his time devising strategies for “plowing around” that rock. In fact, Lincoln’s last official act before heading out to Ford’s Theatre, was to overrule yet another Stanton overreaction.

On the day Lincoln died , Vice President Andrew Johnson from Tennessee was sworn in as President and inherited the pit- bull lap-dog that was Stanton. Over the next two years the slavery loving pro-Union Democratic President Johnson struggled to find a way to make the anti-slavery Republican Stanton “heel”.  Finally, on Monday, 5 August, 1867, Johnson just asked Stanton for his resignation. To his surprise, Stanton simply said “no”.

There was a week of stunned silence from the White House, until the following Monday, 12 August , 1867,  when Johnson tried another tact. He ordered Civil War hero General U.S. Grant  to the War Office, to tell Stanton he was being temporarily suspended. Johnson also told Grant that if Stanton still refused to leave, Grant should arrest him. But Grant didn’t want to do that. Instead he and Stanton came up with a plan of their own. Grant took possession of the office. But Stanton never left the building.

There was a move to impeach Johnson for this attempt, but the votes fell short. The new congress was sworn in on Tuesday, 7 January, 1868, and on Monday, 13 January  it voted to back Stanton. The next day Grant locked the Secretary of War’s office, handed the key to an aide, and left. An hour later Stanton arrived and was handed the key. Only then did Grant tell President Johnson he had quit. The bitch was back.

In desperation, Johnson turned to a character he could control, a 63 year old paper pusher, the Armies’ Adjutant-General, Lorenzo Thomas (above). To this point, Thomas’ greatest claim to fame was that he had help spread the rumor that General William Tecumseh Sherman was crazy. That had not worked, which should have been a hint to Johnson, but he didn't take it. Now, on 21 February , 1868, the President handed General Thomas two letters. The first letter fired Stanton (Again!). The second named Thomas as Secretary of War. Johnson then ordered Thomas to deliver them to both to Stanton. Alas, it was a like sending the Little Dutch Boy to stop a forest fire. All he got was a burned finger.

At the War Office (above), Stanton read both notes, and asked, “Do you wish me to vacate the office at once?” Magnanimously, the old man answered, “Act at your pleasure.” Stanton then went down the hall to make a copy of the letter. While Thomas dumbly waited, and a clerk laboriously wrote out an exact copy of the order, Stanton arranged his thoughts and morphed into a petulant two-year old. When he returned Thomas announced that he would now issue orders as Secretary of War. To which Stanton replied “You shall not. I will countermand.” In front of Thomas, Stanton then dictated a letter to Thomas, saying, “Sir: I am informed that you presume to issue orders as Secretary of War…you are hereby commanded to abstain from issuing any orders other than in your capacity as Adjutant-General of the army.” Stanton then handed the completed letter to Thomas and ordered him out of the office.

A bewildered Thomas informed Johnson of this conversation. The President must have been flabbergasted. He ordered Thomas to return to the War Office and begin issuing orders. Thomas tried that, but discovered he could no longer get in. Stanton had locked the doors.

Stanton now went native. Food was brought in, and and drink, and Grant appointed a special guard to defend the building, against whom he did not say. This military guard was joined by members of the House of Representatives and 100 staffers, who patrolled the basement. I guess because down there in the dark Grant figured they could only shoot each  other. That night, at a White House masked ball in honor of George Washington’s Birthday, and emboldened by a little wine, Thomas boasted that in the morning he would break down the walls of the War Office and arrest the Secretary of War. It looked as if come morning, the nation would be either defended or stolen by a coup d’tetat.

What saved the nation this disaster was that Washington, D.C. (above) has always been, and remains to this day, a small southern town filled with gossips. Stanton heard Thomas’ boast almost as soon as he had uttered it, and at 2 O’clock in the morning as the White House Party was just breaking up, Stanton was awakening a federal judge to sign an arrest warrant. At eight the next morning, as Thomas was just setting down to eat breakfast, he was arrested and charged with violating the Tenure of Office Act, which Congress had passed to prevent Johnson from firing Stanton without Congressional approval. There was no coup d’tetat because at nine a.m. General Thomas was in court.

After he had been released on his own recognizance (who was he going to hurt?), Thomas returned to the White House, where, once again President Johnson ordered the old man to go to the War Department and take possession if it. So, for a third time, the old soldier pushed his rock of Presidential command up the hill to confront his nemeses. The old man intoned, “I will stand here.” Stanton responded, “You can stand there if you please, but you cannot act as Secretary of War. I am Secretary of War. I order you out of this office and to your own.” Thomas answered, “I refuse to go and will stand here.” It was a circular conversation, and getting nowhere fast.

After trying to issue orders to everyone he could (and meeting impassive resistance), Thomas gathered his wounded pride and asked Stanton, “The next time you have me arrested, please do not do it before I get something to eat. I have had nothing to eat or drink all day.” Now it was Stanton’s turn to be magnanimous. He produced a bottle of whisky and poured them equal amounts. Handing a glass to Thomas, Stanton said, “Now, this at least is neutral ground.”

Over the next weeks, while the Senate heard President Johnson’s impeachment trial for trying to fire Stanton, Stanton remained barricaded in the War Department. He received all dispatches and reports, had full access to the telegraph lines. He just never left the building.  Meanwhile Thomas had no access to any of that, but he appeared at daily Cabinet meetings as Secretary of War. But the two never crossed paths. And while the process was argued behind the closed doors of the Senate, a compromise (of sorts) was reached.

On Saturday, 16 May, 1868 the Senate took their first vote on an article of impeachment. It fell short of conviction. President Johnson, who had promised to cease obstructing the Reconstruction acts, would survive. The next day, Stanton wrote his letter of resignation. The crises had been resolved. But it would not be until 1887 before the Tenure in Office Act would be repealed.

Edwin Stanton was nominated to the Supreme Court by the next President, U. S. Grant. But the mercurial  clerk died four days after being confirmed by the Senate, Christmas Eve, 1869. It was so unlike him to sneak out of town before the his chance at a another grand performance.

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