Evening Star
- MAIL BANDITS KILL GUARD, GET $160,000 IN JERSEY HOLD-UP
- CORRUPTION CASE MAY CRUSH G. O. P. HOPES IN INDIANA
- SCRIVENER SLAYER BOY, A WOMAN OR THIN-NECKED MAN
The Evening Star's front page of October 14, 1926, led with an Associated Press account of a machine-gun holdup of a U.S. mail truck in the center of Elizabeth, N.J., in which driver John Enz was killed, a postal clerk and a motorcycle patrolman were wounded, and a Newark dispatch put the stolen payroll at $160,000. From Indianapolis, G. Gould Lincoln reported Thomas H. Adams's charges that the imprisoned former Klan grand dragon D. C. Stephenson had bankrolled the last Republican campaign, a scandal that could cost Senators Watson and Robinson their seats. A local story explained how a broken necktie and fine-ridged fingerprints led police to think Detective Arthur Scrivener's killer was a boy, a woman or a slight man, while The Star posted a $1,000 reward.
Translation
MAIL BANDITS KILL GUARD, GET $160,000 IN JERSEY HOLD-UP
Two Carloads of Outlaws Attack Truck Escorted by Elizabeth Police.
MOTOR CYCLE OFFICER AND P. O. EMPLOYE SHOT
Rain of Bullets Poured Into Victims as Thugs Sweep Streets With Guns.
By the Associated Press.
ELIZABETH, N. J., October 14. — Bandits armed with a machine gun and sawed-off shotguns held up a United States mail truck in the center of the city today and escaped with an unknown amount of loot. The mail pouches stolen are said to have contained upwards of $100,000 in currency being transported to the Elizabethport Banking Co., payroll funds of the Singer Manufacturing Co., and other registered mail. Two post office employes were shot, one fatally, and a policeman also was wounded by the bandits. The business district in which the holdup occurred was in a state of terror as the bandits swept the streets with bullets.
Dies In Hospital.
The dead man is John Enz, 32, driver of the mail truck. He died in the General Hospital five minutes after arriving there. He had been shot through the head. The injured are: Patrick F. Quinn, 26, a post office clerk, who was riding on the truck with Enz. He is in a hospital with three bullet wounds in his left arm and hand. His condition is not regarded as critical. Motor Cycle Patrolman Jacob Christman, 30, who was escorting the truck, received two bullet wounds in his right leg. His condition is not critical.
Hold-up Well Planned.
The hold-up gives every evidence of having been carefully planned. It took place at 9:20 o'clock, at a time when hundreds of persons were in the vicinity. The truck, carrying five sacks of registered mail, was proceeding downtown from the main post office. Christman was riding just ahead of it on his motor cycle when one of the two autos used by the bandits collided with his machine and spilled him into the street.
LOOT PUT AT $160,000
Armed Search for Bandits Begun in Newark Streets.
NEWARK, N. J., October 14 (AP). — A pay roll of $160,000, consigned to the Elizabethport Banking Co. and intended for the Singer Sewing Machine Co., was obtained in the Elizabeth mail robbery, according to reports reaching this city. Acting on reports that the mail bandits had fled toward Newark, the Department of Public Safety threw every reserve into the search for the
CORRUPTION CASE MAY CRUSH G. O. P. HOPES IN INDIANA
Loss of Two Senate Seats Feared if Adams Makes Good on Charges.
DEMOCRATS SEE CHANCE TO WIN STATE CONTROL
Leaders, However, Wary of Making Issue of "Stephensonism" Without Proof.
BY G. GOULD LINCOLN, Staff Correspondent of The Star.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., October 14. — While charges of political corruption involving Republican leaders, great and small, fly like hail, Indiana proceeds with a campaign which is to result November 2 in the election of two United States Senators, the entire State delegation in the House and other officials. It is campaigning on the edge of a volcano. If the volcano erupts between now and election day the result may be the defeat of two Senators, Watson and Robinson, and the transfer of political control of the State from Republican to Democratic hands.
Stephenson Case Figures.
Charges of wholesale corruption have been brought by Thomas H. Adams, veteran Republican editor of Vincennes, Ind., in which he asserts that David C. Stephenson, "Steve," at one time grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan of Indiana, and now serving a life sentence for alleged murder, contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the last Republican campaign here and received assurances he was to be paid back three times the amount he gave and was to have the say in the selection of certain officials. These charges are denounced as fabrications by Republican leaders. Adams has demanded an investigation by the State Senate and has urged that a special session of the Senate be called. He has asked that his own independent investigating committee be given the opportunity of questioning Stephenson, who is in jail at Michigan City. Mr. Adams made his first statement to the press September 23. Up to date, however, neither he nor his committee nor the press has had an opportunity of questioning Stephenson, although it was said "Steve" was anxious to give all the facts.
Grand Jury Takes [?]
SCRIVENER SLAYER BOY, A WOMAN OR THIN-NECKED MAN
Length of Necktie Reveals That Wearer Wore Smallsized Collar.
POLICE LACK ANY REAL MOTIVE FOR SHOOTING
Fingerprints on Gun of Fine Texture Bearing on Possibility of Shooting by Woman.
The Evening Star today posted a reward of $1,000 with Maj. Edwin B. Hesse, superintendent of police, to supplement the $300 reward of the Police Department, for the capture of the murderer of Detective Scrivener or for information leading to such capture given exclusively to the proper police authorities. Maj. Hesse was empowered fully to administer this reward and to determine to whom it shall be paid.
The necktie that Arthur Scrivener clutched in his death grip early yesterday morning was worn by a boy, a man with an exceptionally small neck, or a woman. This much has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the slain detective's comrades at police headquarters, and may furnish the "lead for the boys to work on" that Scrivener more than once promised he would leave if anybody ever "got" him.
The neatly tied necktie was parted cleanly in the back. The knot was not drawn up. Scrivener clutched both ends of it before he died, and either his sudden tug or the weight of his falling body broke it squarely in two. At headquarters the broken ends of the tie, placed together, show that its wearer was a man, woman or boy with a size 12 or 14 collar.
Police Lack Definite Clue.
The obscure fingerprints found on the pistol thrown away by the fleeing murderer show ridges of a fine texture which Sergt. Fred Sandberg, fingerprint expert, declares may have been made by a woman or boy. Detectives were unwilling today to say how much credence they would put in a theory that Scrivener's slayer was a woman, but the size of the necktie undoubtedly has given them a valuable working point. Every clue is being run down thoroughly. But this afternoon, 36 hours after the shooting, police were forced to confess that they still lacked what might be their greatest asset — a tangible theory of a motive for the shooting. The police admit that the night and day work of the combined forces of the uniformed and detective branches of the department thus far has failed to bring the investigation to any real starting point.
Sure of Getting Man.
Yet, there has been at the same time an increase rather than a diminution among the detectives and the police of a feeling of certainty that the man who shot Scrivener through the heart would sooner or later be found.
Meanwhile, arrangements for the funeral of Detective Scrivener were being completed. His brother, Detective Gardner Scrivener of the Akron, Ohio, force, arrived early this morn-
Context
The Cunniffe gang behind the Elizabeth mail robbery
Later accounts name James "Killer" Cunniffe, an armed robber active in New York and New Jersey, as the organizer of the holdup described in the AP report. According to that account, on October 14, 1926, he and seven accomplices armed with submachine guns hijacked the mail truck and escaped with about $161,000 in cash and securities. That figure is close to the $160,000 payroll reported in the Newark dispatch on this page, while the Elizabeth dispatch still called the loot an unknown amount. Cunniffe did not long outlive the robbery: weeks later he was shot dead in Highland Park, Michigan, by fellow gang member William "Ice Wagon" Crowley. The man identified as the gang's leader therefore never answered in court for the killing of the truck driver John Enz.
Why Coolidge sent Marines to guard the mail
The AP story's picture of bandits with a machine gun overwhelming a truck escorted by a motorcycle patrolman explains the federal reaction that followed. The Elizabeth robbery revived concerns in Washington about the vulnerability of mail shipments, concerns that went back to an earlier wave of robberies in 1921; the years immediately after the First World War had seen a large number of mail robberies in the United States. In response to Elizabeth, President Calvin Coolidge ordered U.S. Marines to escort valuable mail shipments and approved the use of Thompson submachine guns for postal guard duty. The government thus answered the gang's firepower, which the paper described as sweeping the business district with bullets, with military weapons of its own.
D. C. Stephenson, the imprisoned Klan leader behind the charges
The "Steve" at the center of Adams's charges had led the Klan across much of the North: Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans named him grand dragon of Indiana and 22 other northern states. The article's phrase "serving a life sentence for alleged murder" understates his legal position. In November 1925 a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Madge Oberholtzer, whom he had brutally raped, and recommended life imprisonment. As the article says, he was held at Michigan City, in the Indiana State Prison, where he would serve 31 years before his release in 1956. From prison he leaked damaging information to newspapers about his involvement in state politics, and the article's report that "Steve" was anxious to give all the facts fits that pattern.
How the 1926 Indiana election and the Stephenson scandal turned out
Arthur Robinson, one of the two Republican senators the article feared would fall, kept his seat: in the special election of November 2, 1926, the appointed senator was re-elected over Democrat Evans Woollen to finish the term. The lasting damage came from Stephenson's disclosures rather than from the ballot. They ended the political careers of Governor Ed Jackson, Indianapolis Mayor John Duvall and several other politicians, and they contributed to the Indianapolis Times investigation of the Klan that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1928. Lincoln's warning that the scandal reached Republican leaders "great and small" was thus borne out, though not in the form of the electoral defeat he described.
Original
MAIL BANDITS KILL GUARD, GET $160,000 IN JERSEY HOLD-UP
MAIL BANDITS KILL GUARD, GET $ 160, 000 IN JERSEY HOLD-UP Two Carloads of Outlaws Attack Truck Escorted by Elizabeth Police. MOTOR CYCLE OFFICER AND P. O. EMPLOYE SHOT Rain of Bullets Poured Into Victims as Thugs Sweep Streets With Guns. By the Associated Press. ELIZABETH, N. J., October 14. - Bandits armed with a machine gun and sawed-off shotguns held up a United States mail truck in the center of the city today and escaped with an unknown amount of loot. The mail pouches stolen are said to have contained upwards of $ 100, 000 in currency being transported to the Elizabethport Banking Co., payroll funds of the Singer Manufacturing Co., and other registered mail. Two post office employes were shot, one fatally, and a policeman also was wounded by the bandits. The business district in which the holdup occurred was in a state of terror as the bandits swept the streets with bullets. Dies In Hospital. The dead man is John Enz, 32, driver of the mail truck. He died in the General Hospital five minutes after arriving there. He had been shot through the head. The injured are: Patrick F. Quinn, 26, a post office clerk, who was riding on the truck with Enz. He in a hospital with three bullet wounds in his left arm and hand. His condition is not regarded as critical. Motor Cycle Patrolman Jacob Christman, 30, who was escorting the truck, received two bullet wounds in his right leg. His condition is not critical. Hold-up Well Planned. The hold-up gives every evidence of having been carefully planned. It took place at 9: 20 o'clock, at a time when hundreds of persons were in the vicinity. The truck, carrying five sacks of registered mail, was proceeding downtown from the main post office. Christman was riding just ahead of it on his motor cycle when one of the two autos used by the bandits collided with his machine and spilled him into the street. LOOT PUT AT $ 160, 000 Armed Search for Bandits Begun in Newark Streets. NEWARK, N. J., October 14 (AP). - A pay roll of $ 160, 000, consigned to the Elizabethport Banking Co. and intended for the Singer Sewing Machine Co., was obtained in the Elizabeth mail robbery, according to reports reaching this city. Acting on reports that the mail bandits had fled toward Newark, the Department of Public Safety threw every reserve into the search for the
CORRUPTION CASE MAY CRUSH G. O. P. HOPES IN INDIANA
CORRUPTION CASE MAY CRUSH G. O. P. HOPES IN INDIANA Loss of Two Senate Seats Feared if Adams Makes Good on Charges. DEMOCRATS SEE CHANCE TO WIN STATE CONTROL Leaders, However, Wary of Making Issue of " Stephensonism " Without Proof. BY G. GOULD LINCOLN. Staff Correspondent of The Star. INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., October 14. - While charges of political corruption involving Republican leaders, great and small, fly like hail, Indiana proceeds with a campaign which is to result November 2 in the election of two United States Senators, the entire State delegation in the House and other officials. It is campaigning on the edge of a volcano. If the volcano erupts between now and election day the result may be the defeat of two Senators, Watson and Robinson, and the transfer of political control of the State from Republican to Democratic hands. Stephenson Case Figures. Charges of wholesale corruption have been brought by Thomas H. Adams, veteran Republican editor of Vincennes, Ind., in which he asserts that David C. Stephenson, " Steve, " at one time grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan of Indiana, and now serving a life sentence for alleged murder, contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the last Republican campaign here and received assurances he was to be paid back three times the amount he gave and was to have the say in the selection of certain officials. These charges are denounced as fabrications by Republican leaders. Adams has demanded an investigation by the State Senate and has urged that a special session of the Senate be called. He has asked that his own independent investigating committee be given the opportunity of questioning Stephenson, who is in jail at Michigan City. Mr. Adams made his first statement to the press September 23. Up to date, however, neither he nor his committee nor the press has had an opportunity of questioning Stephenson, although it was said " Steve " was anxious to give all the facts. Grand Jury Takes [?]
SCRIVENER SLAYER BOY, A WOMAN OR THIN-NECKED MAN
SCRIVENER SLAYER BOY, A WOMAN OR THIN-NECKED MAN Length of Necktie Reveals That Wearer Wore Smallsized Collar. POLICE LACK ANY REAL MOTIVE FOR SHOOTING Fingerprints on Gun of Fine Texture Bearing on Possibility of Shooting by Woman. The Evening Star today posted a reward of $ 1, 000 with Maj. Edwin B. Hesse, superintendent of police, to supplement the $ 300 reward of the Police Department, for the capture of the murderer of Detective Scrivener or for information leading to such capture given exclusively to the proper police authorities. Maj. Hesse was empowered fully to administer this reward and to determine to whom it shall be paid. The necktie that Arthur Scrivener clutched in his death grip early yesterday morning was worn by a boy, a man with an exceptionally small neck, or a womah. This much has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the slain detective's comrades at police headquarters, and may furnish the " lead for the boys to work on " that Scrivener more than once promised he would leave if anybody ever " got " him. The neatly tied necktie was parted cleanly in the back. The knot was not drawn up. Scrivener clutched both ends of it before he died, and either his sudden tug or the weight of his falling body broke it squarely in two. At headquarters the broken ends of the tie, placed together, show that its wearer was a man, woman or boy with a size 12 or 14 collar. Police Lack Definite Clue. The obscure fingerprints found on the pistol thrown away by the fleeing murderer show ridges of a fine texture which Sergt. Fred Sandberg, fingerprint expert, declares may have been made by a woman or boy. Detectives were unwilling today to say how much credence they would put in a theory that Scrivener's slayer was a woman, but the size of the necktie undoubtedly has given them a valuable working point. Every clue is being run down thoroughly. But this afternoon, 36 hours after the shooting, police were forced to confess that they still lacked what might be their greatest asset-a tangible theory of a motive for the shooting. The police admit that the night and day work of the combined forces of the uniformed and detective branches of the department thus far has failed to bring the investigation to any real starting point. Sure of Getting Man. Yet, there has been at the same time an increase rather than a diminution among the detectives and the police of a feeling of certainty that the man who shot Scrivener through the heart would sooner or later be found. Meanwhile, arrangements for the funeral of Detective Scrivener were being completed. His brother, Detective Gardner Scrivener of the Akron, Ohio, force, arrived early this morn -
Source: Holding institution