Island of the Damned by Kirsta Alix

Author:Kirsta, Alix [Kirsta, Alix]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press Ltd.
Published: 2013-09-11T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Five - Hunting the Tiger

Early rumblings of a move to smash organised crime in New York had begun in August 1930, when one of America’s most distinguished judges, fifty seven year-old Judge Samuel Seabury, was appointed by the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court to conduct an investigation into the magistrates’ courts of New York City. The investigation, which had been recommended by U.S Attorney Charles Tuttle and backed by Governor Roosevelt, who endorsed Judge Seabury’s appointment, received enthusiastic support from the New York Bar Association. It also had wholehearted approval from the city’s reform and religious groups who were becoming more vociferous in their demands for governmental and judicial transparency. In the black days following the Wall Street crash in 1929, New York’s Patrick Cardinal Hayes had publicly denounced Mayor Walker’s pleasure seeking pursuits, suggesting that the current economic devastation was just retribution for Walker’s and other “wayward” leaders’ immoral ways. Walker, who garnered more headlines being a playboy than a hard working politician, had provoked outrage by raising his own annual salary from $25,000 to $40,000. When challenged about his pay, he raised further hackles by quipping: “Why that’s cheap! Think what it would cost if I worked full time”. U.S. Attorney Charles Tuttle also warned that New York City was sliding into moral anarchy and demanded a clean-up.

For over two years, from August 1930, the Seabury Commission delved deep into the most secret, often shameful recesses of the city’s judicial and municipal departments. It was a hugely ambitious undertaking, and, as months passed, the net spread. As Judge Seabury began his research into the magistrate’s courts, it became clear that he had to expand his enquiry to include scores of attorneys practising in the lower criminal courts whom he suspected, correctly, of “corrupt, fraudulent, unlawful or unprofessional conduct.” New revelations emerged daily and it was obvious that the dark machinations of the lower courts were a mere curtain raiser before probes of an even more sensational nature unfolded. Still to come was an almost forensic analysis of the workings of the District Attorney’s office, then under the helm of the ineffectual Thomas Crain, and a city-wide examination of every single department of New York: this final marathon probe would culminate in the resignation of Mayor Walker.

Predictably, as news of the remit of the Seabury Commission spread through the press, Mayor Walker announced that he would not testify; eight Tammany district leaders refused to waive their immunity and testify – announcements interpreted as tantamount to an admission of guilt. However, Judge Seabury was a lifelong foe of Tammany, whose leaders evidently underestimated his commitment to smashing their organisation. Nor had they taken into account the painstaking diligence of Seabury’s team as they unearthed every shred of available paperwork and accounts related to all the city’s departments, and subpoenaed the records of New York’s 2,000 banks and brokerage houses. Seabury had hired a team of the very brightest and most enthusiastic young lawyers to carry

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