The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (39 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Whyte
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The
Journal
was now clearly amused. It noted that Clinton Seeley, a member of the Consolidated Exchange, had returned to the floor the previous day for the first time since the dinner in his honor. “No sooner did the other brokers spy him than a dozen of them surrounded him and began an imitation of the ‘Couchee-Couchee.’ Mr. Seeley tried to escape but could not break his way through the line of grinning and cavorting brokers.” A large illustration with the story showed “Little Egypt” dancing in a bejeweled bustier, arms raised and midriff bared.
41
Journal
was now clearly amused. It noted that Clinton Seeley, a member of the Consolidated Exchange, had returned to the floor the previous day for the first time since the dinner in his honor. “No sooner did the other brokers spy him than a dozen of them surrounded him and began an imitation of the ‘Couchee-Couchee.’ Mr. Seeley tried to escape but could not break his way through the line of grinning and cavorting brokers.” A large illustration with the story showed “Little Egypt” dancing in a bejeweled bustier, arms raised and midriff bared.
41
Tired of waiting for the dinner guests to file complaints, Police Chief Conlin called his own hearing into the raid and fired off subpoenas to all involved in the affair. The proceedings opened January 7, 1897, at police headquarters. The hearing room was packed beyond capacity with some four hundred lawyers, witnesses, policemen, soubrettes, and thrill-seeking spectators. From the outset, the
Journal
declared it an opera bouffe of a trial. There were serious issues of law enforcement at stake but none that would be satisfactorily addressed in this venue, especially when Police Commissioner Grant, presiding over the affair, was obviously delighted at the salacious testimony. The paper held its mirthful tone, reporting that onlookers in the hearing room fought over seats, sent messengers for sandwiches so as not to lose their places, and listened to the witnesses with open-mouthed grins. Cora Routt, who had ordered Chapman out of her dressing room, was described as “a self-possessed young woman . . . with a self-conscious smirk and a purple velvet hat of alarming proportions and fearsome design.” In addition to the smirk and the hat, Miss Routt wore “a checked waist, a dark skirt, a fur cape, and carried a muff. She kissed the [Bible] when told to do so with a resounding smack and settled into the witness chair with much complacency and an audible rustle of silk skirts.” She excited onlookers with accounts of her dances and costumes, all the while denying that she’d done anything dirty. Her testimony was related in the
Journal
amid a spectacular page-dominating illustration of flying champagne bottles, dancing girls, tuxedoed gentlemen, and police officers.
42
Journal
declared it an opera bouffe of a trial. There were serious issues of law enforcement at stake but none that would be satisfactorily addressed in this venue, especially when Police Commissioner Grant, presiding over the affair, was obviously delighted at the salacious testimony. The paper held its mirthful tone, reporting that onlookers in the hearing room fought over seats, sent messengers for sandwiches so as not to lose their places, and listened to the witnesses with open-mouthed grins. Cora Routt, who had ordered Chapman out of her dressing room, was described as “a self-possessed young woman . . . with a self-conscious smirk and a purple velvet hat of alarming proportions and fearsome design.” In addition to the smirk and the hat, Miss Routt wore “a checked waist, a dark skirt, a fur cape, and carried a muff. She kissed the [Bible] when told to do so with a resounding smack and settled into the witness chair with much complacency and an audible rustle of silk skirts.” She excited onlookers with accounts of her dances and costumes, all the while denying that she’d done anything dirty. Her testimony was related in the
Journal
amid a spectacular page-dominating illustration of flying champagne bottles, dancing girls, tuxedoed gentlemen, and police officers.
42
The next day Anabelle Moore testified as to the nature of her stage act and what, in particular, she had been asked to do at the Seeley dinner. She described her repertoire, including one piece she called her “sun dance.” She allowed that her figure, in tights, was munificently displayed throughout the number, though she denied that exposing her figure was the point of the dance. She went on to explain another gyration, known as her “butterfly dance.” When Miss Moore was asked under cross-examination how she dressed for the butterfly dance, her lawyer shouted, “I object.”
“Well, how do you undress then?” her interrogator asked.
43
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New Yorkers were agog at the scenes described, even if the dancers were wearing gauze and body stockings. It wasn’t every day that the public got a glimpse inside the private dining rooms of the city’s smart set. The Seeley dinner became a universal topic of conversation. Hardly a preacher in town failed to denounce it from the pulpit. And all this even before the key witness had taken the stand.
When Little Egypt finally entered the hearing room, every gleaming eye in the place fell upon her. She was so lustily surveyed that the
Journal
wondered if Captain Chapman shouldn’t raid his own trial. “She carried her chin high,” the paper reported, smiling and boldly meeting the stares of the assembled as she approached the stand. “Her lips were painted a fiery red that set off by contrast the ivory whiteness of her fine teeth. Her eyes were bright, restless.” She wore a sealskin sack coat, which the heat of the room compelled her to remove. Her tight-fitting dress was made of “some crinkly blue stuff,” with white horizontal stripes across the waist and skirt. “Her hat was a wonderful creation of velvet, embroidery and feathers, worn tilting over her left eye.”
44
Journal
wondered if Captain Chapman shouldn’t raid his own trial. “She carried her chin high,” the paper reported, smiling and boldly meeting the stares of the assembled as she approached the stand. “Her lips were painted a fiery red that set off by contrast the ivory whiteness of her fine teeth. Her eyes were bright, restless.” She wore a sealskin sack coat, which the heat of the room compelled her to remove. Her tight-fitting dress was made of “some crinkly blue stuff,” with white horizontal stripes across the waist and skirt. “Her hat was a wonderful creation of velvet, embroidery and feathers, worn tilting over her left eye.”
44
Little Egypt, a native of Algeria, was born Asheya Waba. She claimed to be fluent in French and to possess only a smattering of English. “She speaks a patois that may be intelligible on the docks of Marseilles,” observed the
Journal,
“but that certainly would not be understood in Paris.” Asked under oath what she was hired to do by Phipps, the entertainment booker, she answered slowly, affecting a lisp that made her even more difficult to understand. Phipps, she said, had told her, “You do a leetle Egyptian pose on a leetle pedestal—in ze altogether.” A moment later, she answered the question again with a slight twist: Phipps had asked her to “pose for art’s sake on a leetle pedestal in ze altogether.” Asked what she meant by “ze altogether,” Little Egypt cast down her eyes for a second, and then raised them and showed her fine teeth in a smile so comprehensive that every man in the room felt it was intended for him. She addressed the question: “Me say, ‘Me do what ees proper for art sake.’ And he say, ‘ver’ well.’”
Journal,
“but that certainly would not be understood in Paris.” Asked under oath what she was hired to do by Phipps, the entertainment booker, she answered slowly, affecting a lisp that made her even more difficult to understand. Phipps, she said, had told her, “You do a leetle Egyptian pose on a leetle pedestal—in ze altogether.” A moment later, she answered the question again with a slight twist: Phipps had asked her to “pose for art’s sake on a leetle pedestal in ze altogether.” Asked what she meant by “ze altogether,” Little Egypt cast down her eyes for a second, and then raised them and showed her fine teeth in a smile so comprehensive that every man in the room felt it was intended for him. She addressed the question: “Me say, ‘Me do what ees proper for art sake.’ And he say, ‘ver’ well.’”
Little Egypt further testified that Captain Chapman had rushed into Sherry’s shortly after she arrived to perform. Her hosts had hidden her on the fourth floor: “Quick zay take me to ze room of ze color of lemons. Zere I was an hour: much wine was given me.”
45
45
These statements were followed by accusations that men had touched and pinched her during her performance and that several of the guests were, as the
Herald
put it, “careless about their attire.”
46
These latter details Hearst’s paper omitted from its coverage. It simply alluded to “testimony that would not interest the
Journal
’s readers” and ran hieroglyphics in place of the offending words. Among other illustrated merriment, the paper produced cartoons of ancient Egyptian characters enacting scenes from the trial: one showed two pharaoh-like figures with cigars in their mouths spiriting a dancer upstairs; one showed lawyers in Egyptian garb demonstrating dance steps; another had Captain Chapman nodding off during the hearing. A further series of five large illustrations showed Little Egypt in various poses, entering the courtroom and flaunting the voluptuous body inside the tight striped dress.
Herald
put it, “careless about their attire.”
46
These latter details Hearst’s paper omitted from its coverage. It simply alluded to “testimony that would not interest the
Journal
’s readers” and ran hieroglyphics in place of the offending words. Among other illustrated merriment, the paper produced cartoons of ancient Egyptian characters enacting scenes from the trial: one showed two pharaoh-like figures with cigars in their mouths spiriting a dancer upstairs; one showed lawyers in Egyptian garb demonstrating dance steps; another had Captain Chapman nodding off during the hearing. A further series of five large illustrations showed Little Egypt in various poses, entering the courtroom and flaunting the voluptuous body inside the tight striped dress.
Captain Chapman himself testified the same day as Little Egypt. The
Journal
was unimpressed. The ruler of the Tenderloin, it commented, was entirely at ease on the stand, “stroking his fine whiskers and twisting his mustache while he answered questions. Some of his phrases were grandiloquent and might have been impressive had they been grammatical.”
47
Journal
was unimpressed. The ruler of the Tenderloin, it commented, was entirely at ease on the stand, “stroking his fine whiskers and twisting his mustache while he answered questions. Some of his phrases were grandiloquent and might have been impressive had they been grammatical.”
47
At the end of the day, Chapman was vindicated, although no one was ever convicted of procuring or performing indecent acts. In the absence of hard findings, the
Journal
organized a “jury” of twelve society women to pass judgment on what had transpired in the private dining room. Mrs. Jennie June Croly spoke for the majority: “I wouldn’t touch one of them with a rake,” she said of the Seeley men. “They have disgraced their own sex, and ours, too.” The only lasting consequence of the hearing was that Little Egypt doubled her rates.
48
Journal
organized a “jury” of twelve society women to pass judgment on what had transpired in the private dining room. Mrs. Jennie June Croly spoke for the majority: “I wouldn’t touch one of them with a rake,” she said of the Seeley men. “They have disgraced their own sex, and ours, too.” The only lasting consequence of the hearing was that Little Egypt doubled her rates.
48
Amid the Seeley saga, the
Journal
also chased the story of a Christmas morning fire at an East 33rd Street tenement that left dozens of families on the street. The
Journal
bought them all Christmas dinner, found them lodging, and launched a drive to collect food, rent money, and household effects for the victims. As part of the relief effort, the paper announced that it would team with impresario Oscar Hammerstein to host a matinee fundraising benefit at his Olympia Theatre on Saturday, January 2. Hammerstein promised to contribute the box office receipts from the performance. The
Journal
bought two hundred seats for the displaced. The chanteuse Louise Beaudet announced she would sing a new song and wear the prettiest of her new dresses at the benefit. Among the other singers, acrobats, and comedians hired to draw the largest possible crowd and lift the spirits of the fire sufferers was the sensational exotic dancer Little Egypt.
Journal
also chased the story of a Christmas morning fire at an East 33rd Street tenement that left dozens of families on the street. The
Journal
bought them all Christmas dinner, found them lodging, and launched a drive to collect food, rent money, and household effects for the victims. As part of the relief effort, the paper announced that it would team with impresario Oscar Hammerstein to host a matinee fundraising benefit at his Olympia Theatre on Saturday, January 2. Hammerstein promised to contribute the box office receipts from the performance. The
Journal
bought two hundred seats for the displaced. The chanteuse Louise Beaudet announced she would sing a new song and wear the prettiest of her new dresses at the benefit. Among the other singers, acrobats, and comedians hired to draw the largest possible crowd and lift the spirits of the fire sufferers was the sensational exotic dancer Little Egypt.
AT THE HEIGHT OF THE SEELEY AFFAIR, Reverend Louis A. Banks, a Brooklyn pastor, preached on the subject of “Christ’s controversy with the brutality and sensuality of Greater New York.” If the Savior were to visit Gotham, the Reverend maintained, there would be hell to pay for the city’s obsessions with violence and sexuality. The Seeley dinner had catered to the basest passions of man, furnishing “a shocking illustration of the decadence and degradation” of the respectable classes. But it was not just lust and lasciviousness that troubled the Reverend. He did not like boxing, either. The
Journal
quoted him at length: “That in the latter days of what we are often pleased to call an enlightened century, on the most famous street in the leading city on the American continent, it should be lawful to slug a man to death for the amusement of [those] who pay . . . is horrible and revolting in the extreme.”
49
Journal
quoted him at length: “That in the latter days of what we are often pleased to call an enlightened century, on the most famous street in the leading city on the American continent, it should be lawful to slug a man to death for the amusement of [those] who pay . . . is horrible and revolting in the extreme.”
49
Hearst himself was not fond of boxing. The
Journal
wanted the sport outlawed, a position it shared with legions of reformers, church groups, and politicians, and prizefighting was indeed illegal in most of the country. The paper did not dispute that fighting encouraged skill and pluck and reliance on one’s fists instead of weapons, but it nonetheless felt that legal recognition for pugilism invited “gamblers, drunkards, roughs and all the social debris to move out of darkness into the light and take a footing which removes the salutary dread of the policeman’s club.”
50
Journal
wanted the sport outlawed, a position it shared with legions of reformers, church groups, and politicians, and prizefighting was indeed illegal in most of the country. The paper did not dispute that fighting encouraged skill and pluck and reliance on one’s fists instead of weapons, but it nonetheless felt that legal recognition for pugilism invited “gamblers, drunkards, roughs and all the social debris to move out of darkness into the light and take a footing which removes the salutary dread of the policeman’s club.”
50
The occasion for the latter comment was a heavyweight bout between Bob Fitzsimmons and Tom Sharkey in San Francisco at the end of 1896. Fitzsimmons sent Sharkey to the mat with a body blow in the eighth round, but Wyatt Earp, the infamous lawman and part-time fight referee, declared a low blow and awarded the match and the $10,000 purse to Sharkey. Earp was accused of fraud. Fitzsimmons took the matter to court. The whole country was talking about the fight over the fight—even Brooklyn pastors were paying attention—and that put the
Journal
in a quandary. It disliked boxing, but it had to admit just “how widespread and deep seated is the savage human interest in fighting.” And now Fitzsimmons was to fight again in an even bigger match.
51
Journal
in a quandary. It disliked boxing, but it had to admit just “how widespread and deep seated is the savage human interest in fighting.” And now Fitzsimmons was to fight again in an even bigger match.
51
Promoters had been trying since 1894 to pit Fitzsimmons against reigning champion Gentleman Jim Corbett, a college-educated fighter who claimed an artistic and scientific approach to the sport. They first scheduled the match in Florida but ran into heavy opposition from local worthies, especially after one of Fitzsimmons’s sparring partners died as a result of injuries suffered in a public exhibition. The promoters turned to Texas and began to build a 50,000-seat arena to host the bout, but the state governor denounced prizefighting as a brutal and degrading sport and ordered a special session of the legislature specifically to make it a felony. The promoters moved on to Hot Springs, Arkansas, with no better luck. Corbett and Fitzsimmons were arrested on entering the state. Finally, the fighters announced that they would meet on March 17, 1897, in Carson City, a mining camp in what was already recognized as the “morally liminal” state of Nevada.
52
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Notwithstanding its opposition to prizefighting, the
Journal
revealed a month before the event that it had bought exclusive access to both boxers for an undisclosed price. The paper was aware of at least one level of hypocrisy: “Although this paper is unfriendly to trusts in a general way, it makes an exception in favor of itself. It has practically secured a monopoly of information concerning the great championship fight. All who desire accurate and official news from the principals, the training quarters, and the ringside will have to read the
Journal
to get it.”
53
Journal
revealed a month before the event that it had bought exclusive access to both boxers for an undisclosed price. The paper was aware of at least one level of hypocrisy: “Although this paper is unfriendly to trusts in a general way, it makes an exception in favor of itself. It has practically secured a monopoly of information concerning the great championship fight. All who desire accurate and official news from the principals, the training quarters, and the ringside will have to read the
Journal
to get it.”
53
It wasn’t uncommon for a paper to deplore and cover an event simultaneously—give the people what they want, as Dana commanded. But Dana had said nothing about monopolizing the conversation around an event that was illegal in most states and that the U.S. Congress was working furiously to suppress. A congressional effort to ban the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight had failed in 1896. Now lawmakers were attempting to forbid the transmission by mail or interstate commerce all pictures and descriptions of prize f ights. A coalition of religious and reform groups, including the 300,000-member Women’s Christian Temperance Union, rallied in Washington in support of the bill. Prizefighting was decried as a “degrading, brutal, and disgusting business” that had “no place in a Christian civilized community.”
54
The reformers lost the vote in the House, saving the
Journal
’s exclusive, and leaving the paper free to editorialize against the sport while making itself the center of attention for the title match.
54
The reformers lost the vote in the House, saving the
Journal
’s exclusive, and leaving the paper free to editorialize against the sport while making itself the center of attention for the title match.
Every day for weeks in advance of the event, the
Journal
ran profiles of the fighters, life-sized pictures of their fists and forearms, and illustrations of their stances, dodges, and punches, including three new blows invented by Corbett, which he claimed had never been used by any other pugilist. Fitzsimmons was followed to church, where he sang in the choir, and to the grave of Brigham Young, where he spoke of his curiosity about Mormonism. The paper consulted experts on everything from training methods to betting lines.
Journal
ran profiles of the fighters, life-sized pictures of their fists and forearms, and illustrations of their stances, dodges, and punches, including three new blows invented by Corbett, which he claimed had never been used by any other pugilist. Fitzsimmons was followed to church, where he sang in the choir, and to the grave of Brigham Young, where he spoke of his curiosity about Mormonism. The paper consulted experts on everything from training methods to betting lines.
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