Read Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series for Free Online

everywhere, from Southern riverboats to western mining camps. American gambling had once been dominated by names like John "Old Smoke" Morrisey, "Honest John" Kelly, and Richard Canfield. Now gamblers with names like Herman Rosenthal, "Bridgey" Webber, "Bald Jack" Rose, Sam Schepps, Harry Vallon, and Sam Paul, operated from Lower East Side pool halls, stuss parlors, and politically protected gambling houses such as Third Avenue's Sans Souci or the Hesper Club on Second.
    Arnold Rothstein-son of "Abraham the Just"-progressed from troubled, jealous child to rebellious, irreligious youth to being part of this sordid universe. And if Arnold Rothstein was drawn magnetically to this world of gamblers, violence, and vice as a teenager, it would prove to be magnetically drawn to him. The toughs of the Bowery, the gamblers and saloon keepers of the Lower East Side, the dope peddlers of Chinatown recognized that the youth provided qualities they lacked so badly: brains, daring, and, yes, even classan understated, soft-spoken manner that coated old crimes with the veneer of old gentility.
    "Not only was Rothstein the future of Jewish crime in New York," one author would write a century later, "he was the future of all crime everywhere."
    He exaggerated ... but only a little.



SOMETHING ABOUT GAMBLING appealed to Arnold Rothstein.
    Good gamblers possess a head for numbers. They might have been high-school or even grade school, dropouts. They might be nearilliterates. But most can recall any number that flashes before their eyes long after the fact, perform elaborate mathematical equationsand, most importantly, calculate odds and payoffs in a flash. At Harlem's Boys High School, Arnold Rothstein amazed his young colleagues, and sometimes even himself, with his manipulation of figures, but otherwise he proved an indifferent student-so lackadaisical that despite his intelligence and background, he dropped out.
    Indifference wasn't A. R.'s only problem. There was a question of conceit. Already, he fancied himself just a little-well, maybe more than just a little-smarter than those around him.
    That too was another part of the gambling's charm, but still not all of it. A. R. loved the sheer rebellion of it all. Abraham Rothstein was "Abraham the Just." Gambling was not just illegal under New York State statutes, it was strictly forbidden by Abraham's code of conduct. To gamble meant not only thumbing your nose at fate-and at the Irish cop on the beat-it meant declaring war on ancient values. Declaring war on Abraham Rothstein.
    Traditional Judaism forbids gambling for money. One recent Rothstein scholar, Dr. Michael Alexander, put it this way:
    Gambling itself was a particularly rebellious behavior. More precisely, professional dice playing had been prohibited in the Talmud not once, but twice. According to Jewish law, a dice player cannot act as a witness. The reasons suggested in the tradition are several, including the notions that gambling is tantamount to robbery and that a gambler wasted time and money instead of tending to the "welfare of the world. " Moreover, as the rabbis teach in the great ethical tract "Avot," "Human hope is but a worm. " If hope in things mortal is founded upon vanity, how much more its sale.
    Vanity. Robbery. That's how Abraham Rothstein defined his wayward son's growing habit. "Gambling is a sin," he scolded. A. R. not only failed to listen, he dared exploit his father's piety to facilitate his own vice. The devout Abraham did not wear jewelry on the Sabbath. Each Friday night, before leaving for synagogue he'd remove his big gold watch and place it in a dresser drawer. As Abraham walked down the stairs and onto the street, Arnold raced to his father's bedroom to grab the timepiece and pawn it for thirty or forty dollars, using the proceeds to finance gambling and loan sharking. If luck were with him, he'd redeem the watch, and sneak it back before his father discovered its absence. If not ...
    If not, Abraham