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CHAPTER IX
THE MURDER OF STANFORD WHITE
BEFORE We turn to some less gruesome incidents
let me refer to the quietest murder America has
ever known. That is how I should describe the
shooting of Stanford White by Harry Thaw, and
I guess I should know. for I was there at the
time, and saw the little trickle of blood which
stained the shirt-front of the millionaire after
Thaw had fired the three shots in rapid suc-
cession.
Less than an hour before I had replied to
questions put to me by both men, the murderer
and his victim. Probably the last question White
ever asked in life. I was appearing at the Cafe
Martin at the time, and both Thaw and White
were there. After the show I wandered across
to Madison Square Roof Garden which White
himself had designed, and which was destined
to be the scene of his last hours. Stanford White
had also made his way thither to see the first
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160 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
production of a new musical farce called
"Mademoiselle Champagne". One of the actors
had just finished his line: "And this is where the
hero slays the villain," when the sound of shots
rang out. I was within a few yards of the table
at which sat Stanford White, his head resting on
his hand. A table or two away Thaw had taken
his seat. Nobody realised that when he rose
from the table where he was sitting with his
beautiful girl wife, and two friends, Truxton
Beale and Thomas McCaleb, that he was intent
on murder. He had been pacing up and down
outside in one of the passages before he entered
the room, and White's table was near some
shrubs. Then Thaw almost sauntered across,
and with a terse: "You have ruined my wife,"
he levelled the revolver and pulled the trigger.
Those in the immediate neighbourhood saw
what happened, and I could not help thinking
at that moment how strange it was that White
should have been asking a question about a
murder just an hour before. The majority of
the people did not know what had taken place,
and very quickly and almost silently the dead
man was removed and a doctor called to the
scene. Meanwhile Evelyn Thaw, whose past life
was to be revealed in all its ghastly details in an
effort to save the life of the man she had married,
DATAS (Photograph)
MURDER OF STANFORD WHITE 161
had rushed across to her husband, crying: "Oh,
why did you do it ?"
Thaw smiled back at her, and, with a shrug
of his shoulders, said: "Perhaps I have saved
your life." That was all, and in this tersely
dramatic fashion the curtain was rung up on one
of the most sensational tragedies and series of
trials that the world has ever known.
I had met both men many times previously.
They were members of New York's 400, and
were present at many of the clubs where I gave
performances. But it was not till the night of the
murder that I was actually introduced to them.
Thaw was a nervous, stuttering individual with
trembling hands, and uneasy eyes. Stanford
White was of sturdier build, and obviously a
man who loved the power which he apparently
wielded. Yet he was to be revealed as one of the
most despicable scoundrels who ever walked the
earth, a despoiler of innocent girls and fair
women.
Within a few hours the whole world was to be
ringing with their names whilst I was to have
that date, the 25th June, 1906, fixed in my
memory for all time through the simple fact of
being there when the shots rang out, the echoing
results of which were still to be heard some
twenty years afterwards.
162 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
It is almost uncanny how both White and
Thaw were to ask me questions within so short
a time of the grim tragedy which so suddenly
enveloped them. I can see that scene now as I
gazed down upon it then from the carpeted
platform which had been built across the or-
chestra so that I could advance into the huge
room, and thus establish a more intimate atmo-
sphere.
And what an atmosphere ! What a sense of
wealth being poured out like water on the glitter-
ing bevy of beautiful women who adorned the
place, and the sparkling wines which lent colour
to the be-silvered tables.
The usual gamut of questions, sporting, his-
torical, religious, catch questions, and all the rest
of them, and then----like a flash----a man, sitting
at a table where there were more champagne
bottles than guests, shot one at me: "What date
was the Civil War ?" I gave him the answer,
and a graphic though brief description of the
main events. There was some applause, but
before it had died down, the man half rose to his
feet to ask another: "Where and on what date
did General Grant fall?"
I gave the date of birth, marriage, death, and
a number of other particulars, and this time the
applause was interrupted from another direc-
MURDER OF STANFORD WHITE 163
tion. A few tables away sat another man, heavily
built, and rather cynical-looking.
"Hi----you guy," he yelled, his voice drowning
everything else, "when was Abraham Lincoln
murdered ?"
"Abraham Lincoln was shot in Lord's
Theatre, Washington, whilst watching the play
`Our American Cousin'. It was at 11.10 p.m.
on the night of the 14th April, 1865. He was
taken from the theatre to the hotel opposite, and
died there at seven o'clock the next morning.
The man who shot him was John Wilkes Booth,
brother of Edwin Booth, the famous actor, and
the murderer was shot dead in a farmhouse whilst
resisting arrest on the 27th April, 1865."
I can remember it all as though it were yes-
terday. Just before I had given my act Rosario
Guerra, a beautiful Spanish actress and dancer,
had been on, and the audience had been enrap-
tured. Then there was dear old Mike Whelan
on the same bill. The older generation will
remember him coming on the stage, and starting
to sing impromptu rhymes which he made up
about various people in the audience. He would
just cast his eye around, and pick out somebody
standing at the side of the gallery, with his hand
to his ear. Mike would at once make up a non-
sense rhyme on this man, switching off imme-
164 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
diately afterwards to give a verse about the lady
in the pink hat sitting in the fourth seat in the
second row of the circle. It was a most popular
show.
There was, in fact, nothing at all to give any
indication of the tragedy which even then must
have been brewing in the heart of Harry Thaw,
the first questioner, and certainly nothing to give
rise to fear of death in the mind of Stanford
White, degenerate and libertine as he was, who
was the second questioner.
I was introduced to White afterwards, by Marc
Klau, and he asked me several more questions.
The place seemed to be teeming with million-
aires, for every other one to whom I was pre-
sented was spoken of as a millionaire, and I got
the feeling that unless you had somewhere about
a million dollars tucked away you were not of
much account. That is how it struck me. And
while I was chatting with White I could see the
other man who had asked me some questions
glowering across at me, whilst a sweet-faced
woman, frail-looking and slim, had her eyes
fixed on the scowling Thaw. It was Evelyn
Thaw, known far and wide at the time as "Angel
Face", and certainly there was something
ethereal about her that night.
Eventually Thaw came across, and without
MURDER OF STANFORD WHITE 165
waiting for an introduction joined in the general
conversation, also asking me more questions. I
could sense that there was some feeling of hos-
tility, but I did not dream of all the hatred and
bitterness that was eating at the heart of Thaw
over the wrong which had undoubtedly been
done to his girl wife when she was an innocent
girl.
She was the daughter of a Scotch blacksmith,
and after the tragedy I spoke to her several
times, gathering many important dates about her
own career. Naturally for years afterwards
questions were fired at me in relation to the
Thaw trial, and I had to be able to rattle off how
the tragedy occurred in June, 1906; how the two
months trial in January, 1907, was suspended
for an inquiry into Thaw's sanity; how the trial
was resumed in March the same year, when the
jury disagreed; how he was acquitted after a
re-trial in January, 1908, on the grounds of
insanity, and confined in Matteawan asylum,
applying for a re-trial in June of that year in
order to prove his sanity.
After repeated applications and appeals
Thaw was again declared insane in July, 1909,
whilst in December of that year the Supreme
Court refused to review the decision of the
Court of Appeals. For three years longer he
166 DATAS: THE MEMORY MAN
remained in the penitentiary and then in July,
1912, made a further appeal for sanity test which
was dismissed, a similar result following another
appeal made in March, 1913 . Then in August,
1913, he made his escape from Matteawan, but
was captured by the Canadian authorities. In
1913 he was pronounced sane and released. In
1916 he was divorced by his wife Evelyn Thaw,
and in 1917 he was arrested for kidnapping a
boy, and whipping him after attempting to
commit suicide. Again he was declared insane
and sent to an asylum. There followed fight
after fight in the courts after this, with the
spending of several fortunes to gain for him the
liberty which was at last granted him in April,
1924.
Several times I saw Evelyn Thaw in after
years, and always I could recall her as I saw her
first on the night of that terrible tragedy----the
angel-faced girl with the large sad eyes, which
even at that tender age had gazed upon such
horrors as few girls are called upon to view.
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