A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans (18 page)

Though the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rejected the notion that Frank had not received a fair trial (with Oliver Wendell Holmes dissenting), public sentiment in much of America was with him, thanks largely to sympathetic press accounts. Leo Frank was no murderer, writer C. P. Connolly asserted in a
Collier's Weekly
article that ran in December 1914, but a “shy, nervous, intellectual” who “looks through his prison bars with the eyes of a stoic.” Three things have condemned him, Connolly wrote: “politics, prejudice, and perjury.” That same month
The New York Times
devoted nearly a full page to Detective Burns's take on the case and the miscarriage of justice that he believed had occurred.

By June of the following year, there was enough doubt in the mind of Georgia's governor, John M. Slanton, that he commuted Frank's death sentence to life in prison. He was hanged in effigy for his courageous decision, a preview of what was to happen to Leo Frank less than two months later. Shortly before midnight on August 16, 1915, a group of vigilantes calling themselves the “Knights of Mary Phagan” and comprised of some of Georgia's leading citizens arrived at the Milledgeville prison farm where Frank was serving his sentence. With no resistance from either the warden or guards, they snatched the famous prisoner and drove him to a site two miles outside of Marietta known as Frey's Gin. There they bound and blindfolded him, placed a noose around his neck, and hanged him from a tree. Justice had been served, Georgia-style, after which Marietta's police chief sent Burns a jeering telegram: “Leo Frank lynched here. Come quick and help investigate.”

 

William J. Burns continued to solve crimes and to make headlines until 1921, when he was tapped by his friend Harry Daugherty, the new attorney general under President Harding, to head what was then called the Bureau of Investigation. It was not an illustrious tenure. Like many detectives of his day, Burns often used whatever questionable methods necessary to achieve results. To his detriment, he employed them at the bureau as well.

“He had no qualms about search and seizure or about employing criminals and men of dubious reputation,” wrote historian Francis Russell. “Any inquisitive congressman or senator, any critic of Daugherty or the Department of Justice, would soon find his own affairs investigated by Bureau agents who did not hesitate to break into offices, riffle files, tap wires, and copy private correspondence.”

Ultimately, though, Burns was brought down not so much by his own behavior as by the scandals of the Harding administration—one of the most corrupt in American history—and by an unsavory character named Gaston Means (see next chapter). He resigned from the bureau under pressure in 1924, and died less than a decade later. Since then his name has been all but obliterated from the history of the FBI, while his successor, J. Edgar Hoover, came to define that institution for the next half century. All in all, a rather sorry legacy for America's Sherlock Holmes.

If William J. Burns was America's Sherlock Holmes, then Gaston B. Means was the nation's very own Moriarty. An unrepentant rogue with devilish charm and a gift for mendacity, Means thrived in that decade of lawlessness known as the Roaring Twenties. In fact, he helped shape it. His finely spun lies metastasized into the highest levels of government, wreaking havoc and ruining reputations—including that of his pal William Burns. He bilked bootleggers and other criminals by selling influence he didn't have, cruelly capitalized on the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's young son, and convinced many Americans that their president, Warren Harding, had been poisoned by his wife. He was so thoroughly rotten that he once bragged that he had been accused of every crime known in America—including murder—and convicted of none. Even when the law did finally catch up with him, Means was unbowed and continued to make sport of human lives until the day he died.

Francis Russell wrote of him: “In appearance a wastrel cherub with round face, dimpled smile, sharp chin, and beaming eyes that flickered from time to time with madness, [he] was a swindler for the joy of swindling, a liar proud of the credibility of his lies, a confidence man able to make his cheats and deceptions works of art.”

Gaston Bullock Means was born on July 11, 1879, at his family's plantation outside Concord, North Carolina. By some accounts he was an affable, well-liked young man, if a bit of a rascal. It was only when he sustained a head injury after falling from the upper berth of a Pullman rail car that, intimates said, a darker, more sinister side of his personality began to emerge. Of course there were those who maintained that it was Means himself who had made the berth collapse by sawing through one of the chains that secured it. He certainly had the foresight to take out several accident insurance policies before boarding the train, and walked away with a tidy settlement.

After quitting his job as a salesman for the Cannon Cotton Mills (or being fired for lying, as the company maintained), Means used his family connections to approach the William J. Burns Detective Agency in 1915 for a job as an investigator. Burns was apparently impressed with Means's ideas about how to bring in new business and hired him for $25 a week, plus commissions. It was the beginning of a fateful friendship. About the same time, Means began working as an agent for the German government. There was nothing illegal about this because the United States had not yet entered World War I and was still officially neutral. Still, it was almost impossible for Gaston Means to operate inside the bounds of truth. To bolster German propaganda efforts against its enemy Britain, he contrived various situations that made it appear that Britain was breaking U.S. neutrality laws by, among other things, receiving American supplies. A minor tempest in the press resulted, but dissipated just as quickly when it was found that the allegations had no merit. By that time, Means had moved on to his next scam.

He managed to charm his way into the life of a wealthy, somewhat simple-minded widow named Maude King. Soon enough, he was managing her affairs and living off her money. Mrs. King had a tidy income from the estate of her late husband, but, as Means discovered, it was only a small portion of the estate. The bulk had been set aside in trust for the establishment of the James C. King Home for Old Men. Means thought himself far worthier of the money and settled on a way to get it. He fabricated a so-called second will that left the entire estate to his personal money vault, Mrs. King. The officers of the trust dismissed the forged will, however, after which Means tried to get former U.S. Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes to pursue the case. When that failed, he started to get desperate. He had already squandered most of Mrs. King's money and he knew that if she ever found out, she might dismiss him as her manager, thus ruining his chance to profit from the bogus will. Plus, she had a met a young naval officer and wanted to marry him. That, too, would interfere with his plans. So, in an effort to isolate and distract her, he told Mrs. King that her life was in danger and sent her away to “safety” in North Carolina. When she grew restless there, Gaston Means settled on a more permanent solution.

On the evening of August 29, 1917, the well-trusted business manager took his client rabbit hunting. Only rabbits weren't the quarry: Mrs. King was. She was shot dead near a spring outside of Means's hometown of Concord. “As we came near the spring, she handed me [her] gun,” he later recounted. “I said I wanted a drink of water from the spring. I placed her gun in the crotch of a tree and told her not to touch it…. Just as I was stooping down for a drink of water, out of the corner of my eye I noted her reaching for the gun, and I called to her not to touch it, as it was loaded. Then I took a drink and the next thing I knew I heard a shot.”

Improbable as the story was, particularly since Mrs. King was shot in the back of the head, a coroner's jury ruled the death accidental. There were still strong suspicions of foul play, however, and an investigation was launched. Mrs. King's corpse was exhumed in Chicago, where the local coroner demonstrated how nearly impossible it would be for the woman to have shot herself. Other investigations in New York and North Carolina revealed, among other things, Mrs. King's missing fortune. As more and more suspicions were directed toward Means, he lashed out. “There is going to be a day of reckoning for those who are responsible for such insinuations,” he declared. “As a southern gentleman I brand them as dastardly and I mean to defend to the limit the name of the woman who is dead and unable to protect herself.”

Despite his dramatic protests, Means was indicted for murder. Clearly he was the killer, yet the prosecution faced a daunting obstacle—public opinion. Much like the Leo Frank case several years earlier, residents of Cabarrus County, North Carolina, resented the interference of New York authorities who arrived to help the state press its case. Gaston Means may have been a scoundrel, but he was
their
scoundrel. And he acquitted himself quite well in court. “Means was the smartest witness I have ever examined,” Solicitor General Hayden Clement later said. A seasoned performer, he kept his cool and lied without blinking, all the while flashing his dimpled smile at the jury of his peers and his good pal the judge. When the verdict was returned, the prosecution was horrified to find that Gaston Means had gotten away with murder.

An ordinary criminal might have lain low for awhile after being acquitted of such a ghastly deed, but not Gaston Means. He got right back to the business of pursuing the matter of the second will, this time on behalf of Mrs. King's sister and beneficiary, Mrs. Melvin—the only member of her family who believed him to be innocent, and a woman now potentially worth millions. To increase his chances of prevailing in the Chicago probate court, Means launched a cynical public relations campaign designed to restore his battered reputation. He did it by fabricating a number of lies based on his stint as a German agent. In one instance, he convinced the district attorney who had prosecuted him in the King case to swear out a warrant for one “Otto Schumann,” an imaginary German assassin who, he claimed, had inadvertently killed Mrs. King while firing at him after a dispute over money. The story was picked up in the Chicago and New York newspapers, just as Means intended. He also concocted an elaborate ruse in which he claimed to have damning papers from his German contact that could very well turn the tide of the war against America's enemy. (The United States had entered the war against Germany in April 1917.) The tale was so convincing that U.S. military intelligence agents got involved and tracked the lead to its inevitable dead end.

Though the nonexistent papers failed to give his reputation the boost he had anticipated, Means remained determined. He was invited to testify before Congress about German activity in the United States, a subject about which he claimed to be well versed. “Gaston was pleased to testify because he needed publicity,” wrote his biographer Edwin P. Hoyt, “and he needed a podium from which he could shout to the world of the good citizenship of Gaston Bullock Means.” Of course, much of what he had to say was pure bunk—a preview of the more significant, and equally untrue, congressional testimony he would later give.

Coinciding with his image enhancing appearance on Capitol Hill, Means filed a million-dollar lawsuit against those who had caused him to be brought to trial for the murder of Mrs. King. Among those named were officers of the King estate trust who had accused him of fraud. It was an obvious ploy to tarnish them and perhaps force a settlement of the second will. Yet this, like all his other efforts on the matter, came to naught. The probate judge ultimately upheld the validity of the first will and chastised Means and Mrs. Melvin for their efforts to profit from the spurious second will. Dogged as ever, Means appealed and was rebuffed again. “No fair consideration of this case can ignore the fact that Gaston B. Means is shown to be the controlling and determining spirit in the attempt to establish this will,” the judge remarked. “Indeed, the conclusion is irresistible that Mrs. King and Mrs. Melvin were singularly under his influence and were largely dominated by his strong personality and inflexible will.”

The estate of James C. King had at last proven to be a dry well, but Means wasted no time brooding. Before long, he was ready to exploit something entirely new—the government position he obtained courtesy of his friend and sometime employer, William J. Burns.

 

After Warren G. Harding was elected president in 1920 on the postwar promise of a “return to normalcy,” he appointed as attorney general the political crony he credited for his sweeping victory, Ohio kingmaker Harry M. Daugherty, who in turn put William J. Burns in charge of the Bureau of Investigation. Burns then hired Means. At a time when the bureau seldom let civil liberties stand in the way of its agenda, the new director knew exactly what kind of work he could expect from his old friend. “If there were informers to be bribed,” wrote Edwin Hoyt, “or offices to be searched, or if in other ways the law of the land was to be breached by the secret investigating arm of the Department of Justice, then Gaston Means was the best possible man to put on the job.” Yet when it came to Burns's legacy, he was the worst. Because there is little documentation about the exact nature of the relationship between the two men, it remains mysterious. What is certain, though, is that Means profited well from the abuse of his position, and Burns, for some reason, protected him. Was the heroic detective of a decade earlier really corrupt? Or was he, like so many others, a victim of Means's masterful deceit? Perhaps he was a bit of both.

No sooner had Means settled into his new job at the bureau than he began to exploit it. He started small, contracting to sell Justice Department investigative reports to the criminals named in them, or to fix federal indictments against them—all guarantees he made with no intention of delivering. He also used his new position to lash out at old enemies, including John T. Dooling, a New York assistant district attorney who had assisted the prosecution in his murder trial. Dooling related details of a troubling call he received from Means in a letter to Attorney General Daugherty: “Today he called me up on the telephone and said he was now at the Department of Justice and used foul and indecent language toward me and told me that he…would get me.” Daugherty forwarded the letter to Burns, who vigorously defended Means and claimed that he had been unfairly prosecuted for the murder of Mrs. King and wrongly accused of forging her late husband's will. He was, said Burns, an asset to the bureau and ought to be left alone. It would take another year of his shenanigans before Daugherty finally suspended him.

The jig was up at the Justice Department, at least temporarily, but armed with a glowing recommendation from Burns, who called him “a resourceful, courageous, intelligent man,” Means secured a temporary position at the Treasury Department. And he even got to keep his office at the bureau, much to the consternation of Burns's deputy, J. Edgar Hoover. Now Means had plenty of time and opportunity to concentrate on his influence peddling schemes. Through numerous contacts in New York and elsewhere, he established himself among rumrunners as the man to see. He convinced them of his powerful friends in Washington, and relieved them of thousands of dollars for services never rendered.

By October 1922, Means was “hand in glove with the bootleggers,” according to his wife. That month alone, she said, one gave him $5,000, another gave him $11,500, and a third forked over $13,000. And those were just the deals she knew about. No doubt even more illicit cash was pouring in. Ironically, it was during this period that Means actually did his duty as a government agent and helped bring down a prominent bootlegging ring known to service the Astors, Vanderbilts, and other members of the elite. But it wasn't a surge of conscience that motivated him; it was simply because he had tried to blackmail the bootleggers and they had refused to pay.

Means continued to perfect his role as the fix-it man for bootleggers and others who needed his help. He generated business by advertising his close association with such prominent government officials as Daugherty, whom he had actually only met once, and a man he never met at all, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. Prohibition enforcement was notoriously corrupt, so Means had no problem convincing criminals that the officials could be bought. And when he failed to deliver, they obviously had no legal recourse against him. It was the perfect scam.

In one notable case, Means swindled more than $50,000 from Edward M. Salomon, president of the Val-Dona Drug Company of Chicago. The company's valuable permits to sell alcohol-based products had been revoked by the government, and Salomon was eager to get them back. Means promised to make it happen for $8,000 cash, which Salomon gladly paid in advance. To string him along, Means showed him forged papers that indicated that the approval process was moving along smoothly. He also offered him the job of Prohibition Director for Illinois, for the rock bottom price of $50,000. Salomon was thrilled. The post would allow him to manufacture and distribute alcohol products any way he wanted. Plus, Means had assured him that President Harding (another “close friend”) would support his appointment. Giddy with excitement, Salomon returned to Chicago, sold out his interest in the Val-Dona company, and hired several assistants in preparation for the plumb post that never materialized.