Mrs. Blacklidge's Grave Mistake

Fast women and slow ponies are known to have wrought ruin on many a man. In Illinois last week, nimble-fingered men and a deck of cards brought disgrace to a woman. The woman is Mrs. Myrtle Tanner Blacklidge, longtime supporter of Senator Deneen, who got her the job of collector of Internal Revenue for the district of northern Illinois. The story of how she happened to lose $207,000 in paper profits at a Springfield faro game, plus $50,000 in cash loaned her by Edward R. Litsinger, also a Deneenman and member of the Cook County Board of Review, has two versions as antipodal as those told in the case of Potiphar's wife.

Mrs. Blacklidge's story: She was approached by an acquaintance of her late husband who persuaded her to join the game at the St. Nicholas Hotel. With his stake, she won $207,000. The gamblers then demanded that she produce $50,000 in cash as an evidence of good faith before they would pay off. She went to Chicago, first told Mr. Litsinger that she needed the money for business purposes, later apprising him of the real circumstances. Then she returned to Springfield. Accompanied by Mr. Litsinger's nephew Fred, a timid youth of 27, she met the gamblers, who inveigled the young man into staking the money on a turn of the cards. Neither she nor young Mr. Litsinger quite understood what went on after that, but the gamesters pocketed the money and slid from the room.

Mr. Litsinger's story: He loaned the money to Mrs. Blacklidge because he had known her for 20 years and understood that she needed it to collect a $90,000 "estate" which her husband had accumulated in some vague transaction. He went to Springfield with his nephew, sat in the hotel lobby. The first he knew about the faro game was when his kinsman rushed up agitatedly, crying: "Uncle Ed, we've been robbed!" Young Mr. Litsinger explained that when he had entered the gambling room three men had muscled the cash away from him, Mrs. Blacklidge had looked on.

Arrested on complaint of the elder Litsinger, Mrs. Blacklidge satisfied the Springfield police that she had been duped. Not content with this, Mr. Litsinger forwarded his accusations to the State's Attorney, charged Mrs. Blacklidge with complicity to defraud him, posted a reward of $2,000 for the three confidence men. He failed to identify notorious Jules ("Nicky") Arnstein of Manhattan as one of the cozeners.

Shamed and distressed, foolish Mrs. Blacklidge turned in her Federal resignation. Said she: "I made a grave mistake and I am paying for it. I am resigning my office to save the Government and my friends from further embarrassment."

Search for the card sharps uncovered stories in Chicago to the effect that a U. S. Senator had been flimflammed out of $60,000 while an unnamed businessman had lost $90,000 in similar swindles.

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