Sam Paul
Encyclopedia
Sam Paul was an American gambler and underworld figure in New York City
at the turn of the century
. Founder of the Sam Paul Association, he was also a major political organizer for Tammany Hall
.
at the corner of Third Avenue and 13th Street in partnership with Louis Kaufman.
Paul was initially sought by police as a witness in the killing of gambler Herman Rosenthal, as they had received information that the crime had been planned at the Sam Paul Association clubhouse at Sea Gate, Brooklyn on July 14, 1912 by Jack Rose
, Bridgie Webber, and a man known only as "Dollar John." On July 21, however, Paul was arrested as a suspect. He maintained his innocence, claiming he had been home in bed at the night of the murder and that, rather than having been involved with Rosenthal's death, he had paid for Rosenthal's funeral. The charges were dropped after Paul provided the police with an alibi
.
Paul's arrest prompted New York Times reporters to interview members of the Sam Paul Association at 37 E. 7th Street about the membership and purpose of the organization. A member, who did not give his name, stated that:
Paul and Webber, who together ran the popular Sans Souci Music Hall on Third Avenue at 13th Street, had previously been involved in a violent dispute with Rosenthal after Rosenthal arranged an NYPD raid on that club and subsequently took over the nearby Hesper Club on Second Avenue. Their rivalry eventually resulted in Webber being attacked and severely beaten by two members of Jack Zelig
's criminal organization
. Zelig was called "the right hand man of Sam Paul" by the New York Times.
When Harry Horowitz
and Lefty Louis Rosenberg were arrested in September 1912 and charged with killing Rosenthal, rumors circulated to the effect that Paul had paid for their attorney, former magistrate Charles Wahle. Horowitz, Rosenberg, Wahle, and Paul denied that this was the case. Paul was held as a material witness and was one of several gangland figures who testified at the trial of Charles Becker
later that year. Partly as a result of his testimony, Becker was convicted of Rosenthal's murder and was executed in 1915.
As a result of the publicity created by the Rosenthal murder, NYC Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo
opened an investigation into Sam Paul, the Sam Paul Association, and their connections with government officials at various levels. He supplied New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor
with a list of 62 names of alleged members of the Association. The investigation linked Paul with politicians, including Samuel S. Koenig
and his brother Morris. According to the New York Times report:
Both Koenigs denied these allegations. In separate statements the brothers mentioned Paul's membership in Tammany Hall as probative of their claims that Paul was a member of the Democratic Party
, and, as such, unlikely to have associated with them.
, restaurants and other establishments), Paul worked as a manager for a cabaret club in his later years and was nearly bankrupt according to a number of his associates in East Side Manhattan
. He himself remarked to Sigmund Schwartz, a personal friend and owner of Schwartz's Undertaking Parlors, "You'll get me pretty soon, now. My health is gone and so is my money". Indeed Paul was seriously ill for three weeks before his death from nephritis
at his East Eighteenth Street home on January 10, 1927. His funeral was held the following morning at Schwartz's parlor on Fifth Street, near Second Avenue, and buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery
. According to the New York Times, 2000 people attended Paul's funeral. Illiam Berkowitz, a friend of Paul's, was quoted in the paper as saying that Paul was a "square gambler and a philanthropist."
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at the turn of the century
Turn of the century
Turn of the century, in its broadest sense, refers to the transition from one century to another. The term is most often used to indicate a non-specific time period either before or after the beginning of a century....
. Founder of the Sam Paul Association, he was also a major political organizer for Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
.
Rosenthal case and before
By 1903, the "Sam Paul Association" was already being mentioned in the news as a center of criminal activity in New York. By 1910, Paul was running a pool hallPool hall
A billiard/billiards, pool or snooker hall is a place where people get together for playing cue sports such as pool, snooker or carom billiards...
at the corner of Third Avenue and 13th Street in partnership with Louis Kaufman.
Paul was initially sought by police as a witness in the killing of gambler Herman Rosenthal, as they had received information that the crime had been planned at the Sam Paul Association clubhouse at Sea Gate, Brooklyn on July 14, 1912 by Jack Rose
Jack Rose
Jack Rose may refer to:* Jack Rose , a classic cocktail* Jack Rose American gambler and underworld figure in NYC* Jack Rose , American guitarist...
, Bridgie Webber, and a man known only as "Dollar John." On July 21, however, Paul was arrested as a suspect. He maintained his innocence, claiming he had been home in bed at the night of the murder and that, rather than having been involved with Rosenthal's death, he had paid for Rosenthal's funeral. The charges were dropped after Paul provided the police with an alibi
Alibi
Alibi is a 1929 American crime film directed by Roland West. The screenplay was written by West and C. Gardner Sullivan, who adapted the 1927 Broadway stage play, Nightstick, written by Elaine Sterne Carrington, J.C...
.
Paul's arrest prompted New York Times reporters to interview members of the Sam Paul Association at 37 E. 7th Street about the membership and purpose of the organization. A member, who did not give his name, stated that:
The papers have given the impression that the Sam Paul Association has been the headquarters for a lot of plotters and lawbreakers. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of respectable business men, lawyers, doctors, and others in our membership. I myself am a tailor. That man on your right is a government official. Of course, some of the members are in sporting lines, but the proportion is about half and half... For some reason or other, Sam Paul and the Sam Paul association have to take the knocks for everything that goes wrong. Every time a gaming joint is raided, the papers say it is supposed to have been one of Sam Paul's, and lately every time a crime has been committed they say it was planned here at the clubrooms, and every man the police arrest is said to be a member of the Sam Paul Association. And all this, when as a matter of fact this is only a social club and dining room, and Sam Paul is one of the nicest fellows, and one of the most charitable men in New York. He wouldn't hurt a fly.
Paul and Webber, who together ran the popular Sans Souci Music Hall on Third Avenue at 13th Street, had previously been involved in a violent dispute with Rosenthal after Rosenthal arranged an NYPD raid on that club and subsequently took over the nearby Hesper Club on Second Avenue. Their rivalry eventually resulted in Webber being attacked and severely beaten by two members of Jack Zelig
Jack Zelig
"Big" Jack Zelig was a Jewish American New York City gangster and one of the last leaders of the Monk Eastman Gang.-Early years & the Eastmans:...
's criminal organization
Eastman Gang
The Eastman Gang was the last of New York's street gangs which dominated the city's underworld during the late 1890s until early 1910s. Along with the Five Points Gang under Paul Kelly, the Eastmans succeeded the long dominant Whyos as the first non-Irish street gang to gain prominence in the...
. Zelig was called "the right hand man of Sam Paul" by the New York Times.
When Harry Horowitz
Harry Horowitz
Harry Horowitz , also known as Gyp the Blood, was a Jewish-American underworld figure and a leader of the Lenox Avenue Gang in New York City.-Biography:...
and Lefty Louis Rosenberg were arrested in September 1912 and charged with killing Rosenthal, rumors circulated to the effect that Paul had paid for their attorney, former magistrate Charles Wahle. Horowitz, Rosenberg, Wahle, and Paul denied that this was the case. Paul was held as a material witness and was one of several gangland figures who testified at the trial of Charles Becker
Charles Becker
Charles Becker was a New York City police officer in the 1890s-1910s and who was tried, convicted and executed for ordering the murder of a Manhattan gambler, Herman Rosenthal in the Becker-Rosenthal trial. Becker was the first American police officer to receive the death penalty for murder...
later that year. Partly as a result of his testimony, Becker was convicted of Rosenthal's murder and was executed in 1915.
As a result of the publicity created by the Rosenthal murder, NYC Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo
Rhinelander Waldo
Rhinelander Waldo was appointed the 7th New York City Fire Commissioner by Mayor William Jay Gaynor on January 13, 1910. He resigned on May 23, 1911, less than two months after the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire to accept an appointment as the 8th New York City Police Commissioner...
opened an investigation into Sam Paul, the Sam Paul Association, and their connections with government officials at various levels. He supplied New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor
William Jay Gaynor
William Jay Gaynor was an American politician from New York City, associated with the Tammany Hall political machine. He served as mayor of the City of New York from 1910 to 1913, as well as stints as a New York Supreme Court Justice from 1893 to 1909.-Early life:Gaynor was born in Oriskany, New...
with a list of 62 names of alleged members of the Association. The investigation linked Paul with politicians, including Samuel S. Koenig
Samuel S. Koenig
Samuel S. Koenig was an American lawyer and politician.-Life:He came to the United States as a small boy with his parents, and they settled in New York City. He attended the public schools until the age of 13, then went to work as a clerk...
and his brother Morris. According to the New York Times report:
Paul is said to be a follower of the political fortunes of Samuel S. Koenig, Chairman of the Republican County Committee, whose home is on the east side. He is also said to be the head of a powerful gang of knife and gun fighters.
Both Koenigs denied these allegations. In separate statements the brothers mentioned Paul's membership in Tammany Hall as probative of their claims that Paul was a member of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, and, as such, unlikely to have associated with them.
After Rosenthal case
Paul married after the trial and had a daughter, Dorothy, who was born in 1918. After his first wife died, Paul married Lena Solomon. Although he had amassed a considerable fortune during his life (earning thousands from poolrooms, cafes, cabaretCabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
, restaurants and other establishments), Paul worked as a manager for a cabaret club in his later years and was nearly bankrupt according to a number of his associates in East Side Manhattan
East Side (Manhattan)
The East Side of Manhattan refers to the side of Manhattan Island which abuts the East River and faces Brooklyn and Queens. Fifth Avenue, Central Park, and lower Broadway separate it from the West Side....
. He himself remarked to Sigmund Schwartz, a personal friend and owner of Schwartz's Undertaking Parlors, "You'll get me pretty soon, now. My health is gone and so is my money". Indeed Paul was seriously ill for three weeks before his death from nephritis
Nephritis
Nephritis is inflammation of the nephrons in the kidneys. The word "nephritis" was imported from Latin, which took it from Greek: νεφρίτιδα. The word comes from the Greek νεφρός - nephro- meaning "of the kidney" and -itis meaning "inflammation"....
at his East Eighteenth Street home on January 10, 1927. His funeral was held the following morning at Schwartz's parlor on Fifth Street, near Second Avenue, and buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery
Mount Hebron Cemetery
Mount Hebron is a Jewish cemetery located in the Flushing neighborhood of New York City. It was founded in 1903 as the Jewish section of Cedar Grove Cemetery. It is noted for its Yiddish theater section....
. According to the New York Times, 2000 people attended Paul's funeral. Illiam Berkowitz, a friend of Paul's, was quoted in the paper as saying that Paul was a "square gambler and a philanthropist."
Further reading
- Asbury, HerbertHerbert AsburyHerbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
. The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. (pg. 315-320) ISBN 1-56025-275-8< - Chafetz, Henry. Play the Devil: A History of Gambling in the United States from 1492 to 1955. New York: Potters Publishers, 1960.
- Cohen, Stanley. The Execution of Officer Becker; The Murder of a Gambler, the Trial of a Cop, and the Birth of Organized Crime. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0-78671-757-2
- Joselit, Jenna Weissman. Our Gang: Jewish Crime and the New York Jewish Community, 1900-1940. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983. ISBN 0-253-15845-1
- Katcher, Leo. The Big Bankroll: The Life and Times of Arnold Rothstein. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994. ISBN 0-306-80565-0
- Logan, Andy. Against The Evidence: The Becker-Rosenthal Affair. New York: McCall Publishing Company, 1970.
- Pietrusza, David. Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003. ISBN 0-7867-1250-3
- Root, Jonathan. One Night in July: The True Story of the Rosenthal-Becker Murder Case. New York: Coward-McCann, 1961.