MILLIONAIRE'S MURDER

Hokitika Guardian, 20 June 1931, Page 6

MILLIONAIRE'S MURDER

NEW YORK UNDERWORLD -MYSTERY. JACK DIAMONDS BOSS. The news that Jack Diamond, the notorious gang leader, has recently been arrested and released on bail on the charge of having tortured a lorry driver to extract information about a rival organisation, has re-awakened interest in the man on whose shoulders Diamond climbed to uneasy notoriety. That man was Arnold Rothstein, millionaire, gambler and “racketeer,” who once employed Diamond as his bodyguard. He was shot in the Park Central Hotel, New*Yonv City, on 'November 4, 1928. The police never discovered who killed ißothstej.n. The affair was extremely mysterious, and until now has remained a mystery. A series of articles has now appeared in the “New York Graphic” under the signature “Night Hawk,” in which a solution of the mystery is claimed. Arnold Rothstein, it is related, began life selling cotton goods in Chicago. At the age of 23 he had his first encounter with the police, in connection with a gambling episode. Five years later, in 1910, he is stated to have beoome “the biggest gambler in the world. In one gambling coup he became a millionaire,” but he was not only a gambler. He had his place in the underworld, and before long .there were few “rackets” or gambling houses in New York in wlvch lie had no interest.

At the same time he made himself useful to other gangsters. He became their hanker, and, for that reason, was safe from the machine ,guns and the “rides.” No other gangster ventured to molest him.

But he chose to throw away his immunity and sign his death warrant—a warrant which was not executed until 11 years later—by one fatal act, committed on May 15. 1917.

One of his gambling houses was raided bv five other gangsters, who got away with some hundreds of dollars. The men who did it were afterward arrest'd on suspicion. >Tn a private interview in orison with Rothstein, thev sa’d thev had been unaware that (it was Bothstein’s house they were raiding, and promised to return the money if they were released. ROTH STUN E REVENUE. The next day an identification parade was held. The suspects were lined up. and the witnesses who had been ordered to appear were given masks and long coats, and asked to identify th-rn. They refused. Then Rothstein arrived, refused to don mask or coat, and in a cold fury identified the men. They were given a long term of imprisonment. But Rothstein had broken the rigid code of the underworld, the code of s I ■once, and from that day his immunity was gone.

For a time, however, he prospered. His gambling ventures were uniformly successful. He engaged in the drug

traffic, in the drink traffic, and jn any other kind of such traffic available. He swindled the Bank of the United States out of £32,000.

At the same time ho was a more or less respected member of society. He ran horses at race meetings. He courted society women. He money like water. But rumours began to spread about him, and he was asked to give up racing, following disclosures regarding “fixed’Taces and bribed jockeys. Following that, his decline was rapid. He grew greedy. His big coups became fewer. At the same time his underworld enemies became bolder. Becomtig apprehensive, Ik hired Jack Diamond and his brother ’Eddie as a bodyguard. Eddie Diamond was “put on the spot” by foui’ rival gangsters, who, with others, were in turn killed by shooting or torture.

TiKLEI’HOXE TAPPED. In the summer of 1928 the police tapped Kothsti'in’s telephone line, and were able to intercept h's drug consignments. He lost £300,000 in that way. Til September he lost £44.000 in gambling with a gangster named Nigger Nate .Raymond. He accused Raymond of cheating, and refused to pay.

The underworld knew what would happen then, and leading gangsters hur-; ried to establish alibis. Many of them left New York, including, it is believed Jack Diamond. Oil November 4,_ Rothstein's chauffeur told him that his house was being watched. He- shook off his pursuers, however, and reached a restaurant, where he dined for the last time with a woman friend. Then he was called to the telephone bv his associate, George McManus, who asked him (speaking, it is disclosed, with a revolver pressed against his ribs) to go around to the Park Central Hotel, where McManus was staying. At the entrance to the hotel a gangster came up to him and gave him a last chance to pay his debt to Raymond. He refused, and died in great agony, shot through the stomach. The man who fired the shot, according to the “Night Hawk," was one of Raymond's creditors, whose name ho gives. The murderer walked out of the hotel and escaped, and was last heard of in Chicago.