Herbert Mitgang covered national, international, and New York cultural subjects as editorial writer and correspondent for The New York Times. He is author or editor of fifteen books in American history, law, literature, reportage, and fiction. He currently contributes to The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, Newsday, and the Chicago Tribune. He lives in New York City.

Once Upon a Time in New York

Jimmy Walker, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Last Great Battle of the Jazz AgeBy Herbert Mitgang

Cooper Square Publishers

Copyright © 2003 Herbert Mitgang
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780815412632

Prologue

That Was a Time….

After a late dinner in their Manhattan hideaway on a star-kissed night in theautumn of 1928, Mayor James J. Walker and his showgirl mistress, Betty Compton,motored to Westchester in his chauffeured, silver-trimmed Duesenberg to hearVincent Lopez’s orchestra play dance tunes at Joe Pani’s Woodmansten Inn. Thenightclub was a favorite hangout for respectable suburbanites, revelers from NewYork City carrying their own silver flasks of Prohibition whisky, and members ofthe underworld and their women, some of whom were rumored to be their wives.

That evening Betty was in high spirits. She turned to Lopez and said, “I feellike Cinderella.” Betty insisted on dancing and coaxed Walker out on the floor.He reluctantly agreed to take a few turns before going back to their table. Shekicked off her satin slippers and asked Lopez to autograph them as a souvenir.The bandleader borrowed a fountain pen and did so to please Betty and his palJimmy, who asked her to restrain herself. He had only been drinking ginger aleat the club.

Suddenly, there was a stirring at one of the important tables nearby. Awell-dressed man who seemed to know the mayor strolled over and whisperedsomething in his ear.

Walker looked startled. He and Betty quickly rose from their ringside table andhurried to the cloakroom. Lopez left the bandstand and followed them as themayor’s car pulled up to the entrance. It was a little past midnight. Walkerapologized for having to leave so early; after all, he was not called the NightMayor of New York for nothing. He told the bandleader that they had to return toManhattan immediately.

“Arnold Rothstein has just been shot, Vincent,” the mayor said. “That meanstrouble from here on.”

His instinct was on target; there would be even more trouble than he couldpossibly have imagined. Jimmy Walker’s own conduct in and out of office wasabout to become the centerpiece of the greatest investigation of municipalcorruption in American history.

All across the United States, journalists and other wiseacres would soon have afield day with the popular mayor’s personal problems and public trials. Notsince the notorious Tweed Ring was exposed in the nineteenth century would NewYorkers become so aroused and, strangely, amused. The indignant “Goo-Goos” ?the Good Government advocates ? smelled blood in the corridors of City Hall.Even so, it was hard to be considered an idealist at a time when idealism ingovernment seemed old-fashioned. If you were an outspoken reformer in thefreebooting 1920s, you were just not with it. A benevolent form of blinkeredcorruption bestrode the city.

Ben Hecht, the Chicago reporter who become a playwright (The Front Page)and screenwriter, observed: “Walker is a troubadour headed for Wagnerian dramas.No man could hold life so carelessly without falling down a manhole before he isdone.”

Before mounting the witness stand, Walker cheerfully said: “There are threethings a man must do alone. Be born, die, and testify.” Sharply dressed for hisshow-and-tell trial, wearing a blue double-breasted suit with a matching blueshirt, blue tie, and blue handkerchief, the mayor commented: “Little Boy Blue isabout to blow his horn ? or his top.”

While being cross-examined in the county courthouse in Manhattan by the intrepidSamuel Seabury, the anti-Tammany patrician who was the proud namesake of thefirst Episcopal bishop in the United States, Walker told reporters: “This fellowSeabury would convict the Twelve Apostles if he could.” The mayor kept his cool– and gained the applause of his cheering admirers with a wisecrack: “Life isjust a bowl of Seaburys.”

But the mayor’s nightclubbing lifestyle was overshadowed as other majorpersonalities were coming forward on the American political stage. In 1928 AlSmith was running for president and Franklin Roosevelt for governor; thefollowing year, Mayor Jimmy Walker would run for reelection against CongressmanFiorello La Guardia. In these contests, the murder of politically connectedArnold Rothstein affected the power of Tammany Hall’s Sachems, whose tentaclesreached into every corner of the city ? and into every voting booth.

In the balance stood the man Roosevelt called the Happy Warrior ? Alfred E.Smith, the first Catholic to be nominated for president. Would a regionallydivided nation be ready to put aside its religious and racial differences andvote for him? Would Al Smith be able to distance himself from his image as asocial reformer who grew up on the rough-and-tumble sidewalks of New York and beaccepted as a leader of national stature? He had called for repeal ofProhibition, a central issue around the country. But as H. L. Mencken astutelywrote: “Those who fear the Pope outnumber those who are tired of the Anti-SaloonLeague.”

In the wings hovered one of the boldest personalities in the electoral historyof the Empire City ? Fiorello La Guardia, a Republican Congressman in aDemocratic town. He was of half-Italian, half-Jewish origin, a street fighterwho reflected the hopes of the ethnic neighborhoods more than any otherpolitician. The Little Flower, a former president of the city’s Board ofAldermen, aspired to be the next mayor of New York ? if Jimmy Walker and theTammany operatives stumbled.

Franklin D. Roosevelt observed the repercussions of the Rothstein assassinationand the burgeoning investigations in New York City with the greatest personalinterest. If the Tammany leaders did not erect any last-minute roadblocks, hisdream of being nominated and elected as the thirty-second president of theUnited States when his turn came might become a reality.

Roosevelt was known for his eloquence, good looks, and recognizable name. No onewho knew him could deny his personal bravery in making a comeback after poliohad destroyed his ability to walk alone; in four determined years he hadgraduated from crutches to canes on Democratic political platforms. “If heburned down the Capitol,” said the humorist Will Rogers, “we would cheer andsay, ‘Well, we at least got a fire started anyhow.'”

But some political analysts considered him a lightweight. In words that he wouldlater have to swallow, Walter Lippmann, the influential columnist, declared:”Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is noenemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any importantqualifications for the office, would very much like to be President.”

In a bizarre way, the notorious gangland murder of Rothstein called attention tothe weakness of the district attorney and the police department and touched offthe trials of Jimmy Walker and Tammany Hall. Suddenly, Governor Roosevelt foundhimself facing down the kingmakers and corrupters within his own party in theCity of New York. Would Roosevelt show that he was capable of independentbehavior ? or would he cave in for political expediency? As a presidentialcontender, Roosevelt was about to have his mettle tested.

Continues…
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