On Sour land Mountain (Cont'd)

CRIME

The cold wind which, on the night of March 1, banged shutters and rattled windows at the lonely New Jersey home of Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, had died down last week. Two weeks of March had run out. But still the curly-headed baby for whom all police and all good citizens of the nation were on anxious lookout, was a lost child. The strain told on the bereaved mother, soon to become a mother again. Physicians attended her, but still she was seen with her mother and sister going about her robbed house, managing, helping, hoping. At Hopewell, where the Press kept constant contact with the State police, new factual developments were only a thin trickle amid the welter of rumor, false report and fantasy which piled up from day to day.

Facts. It was announced that the original ransom demand (not yet made public) was found some hours after the child's disappearance was discovered, and not, as originally reported, when Col. & Mrs. Lindbergh first rushed with Nurse Betty Gow into the nursery. And both parents were not downstairs when Nurse Gow found the crib empty. Mrs. Lindbergh was on the second floor taking a bath. Learning that Mrs. Lindbergh did not have the baby, Nurse Gow went downstairs to see if the child was with his father (who calls him "it'').

Also during the week, Henry ("Red") Johnson, a friend of Nurse Gow's who had difficulty explaining his movements on the kidnapping night, passed beyond suspicion. He was, however, held for the immigration authorities when it was found that his real name was Henrik Finn Johnsen and that he had illegally entered the U. S. by jumping ship in Brooklyn several years ago.

Fantasy. In Crossville, Tenn. two couples were held all afternoon because they were accompanied by a blond, curly-headed child who reached for a telephone and responded to the name "Betty Gow." . . . For the New York American Joan Lowell (Cradle of the Deep) discovered an old "amazon" in the hills behind the Lindbergh home who intimated that apple-jack distillers had snatched the child to scare the Lindberghs out of the neighborhood. A mysterious trespasser was arrested outside a nearby deserted shack wherein a clean new diaper had been found. . . . Two Lindbergh representatives accompanied by a "Morgan man" were planning a trip to Detroit by airplane with $250,000, reported the New York Mirror. . . . The Post discovered the presence of a Denver gang recently arrived at Newark by air. . . . A motorist with New Jersey license plates on his car was stopped 100 times between Trenton and California by vigilant police. . . . The conductor of an eastbound express was ordered to search a private car for a mysterious infant. . . . Responding to wirelessed requests, Scotland Yard operatives searched S. S. President Roosevelt when the ship docked at Plymouth, England. American Legionnaries did the same thing to S. S. Ile de France at Le Havre, British officials to the Roma at Gibraltar. Norwegian police inspected a batch of 28 babies at Bergen aboard S. S. Bergensfjord. . . . In Boston, Mayor Curley announced that the Lindbergh baby was safe at home, but that his return was to be held secret for 72 hours to give the kidnappers a chance to escape. Mayor Curley had it straight from a Boston advertising man who had it straight from a Boston insurance man who had it straight from a Manhattan banker who said he knew the Lindbergh family. . . . Moscow newspapers took no notice whatsoever of the 20-month-old Capitalist's kidnapping. . . . At Washington, chiefs of the Four Great Tribes of gypsies, traditional kidnappers, convened and decided to send out word to their tribesmen to keep a dark eye peeled. . . . Mysterious limousines with curtains drawn dashed up frozen Sourland Mountain to the Lindbergh home, dashed away again. A car from Missouri loaded with three blackamoors also called and departed. It was said to contain a colored Kansas City attorney. . . .

Col. Lindbergh, masquerading in a State trooper's leather coat and goggles was several times reported away from home all night on missions of which the police were kept in ignorance. At least two new "authentic" letters from the kidnappers were reported received, and one telephone call which broke off abruptly.

Underworld. As the case entered its second week, Col. Lindbergh began taking it more & more into his own hands, apparently not fully satisfied with police measures as he turned for assistance to the underworld. Manhattan's saloon-owning Owney Madden and Chicago's Scarface Al Capone had promptly offered aid. But the emissaries which Col. Lindbergh had appointed were two metropolitan 'leggers named Salvatore Spitale and Irving Bitz. They turned up in Brooklyn's Federal Court last week, charged with landing liquor from a boat. It was evident that they had not been able to accomplish much toward the Lindbergh babe's return.

Mysterious Guest. While the Pulpit deplored and the Press delighted in gangland's taking the kidnapping into its heart and hands (see p. 18), Col. Lindbergh selected a new assistant to keep him in contact with the criminal kingdom. This was a handsome Jew named Morris Rosner. A report that he was a onetime Department of Justice operative was denied at Washington. He is now under indictment for stock fraud. "A member of President Hoover's Cabinet" was said to have suggested him to Col. Lindbergh. Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma declared in Washington: "I have known him [Rosner] for a year under circumstances which make me positive that he is extremely trustworthy. In fact, I would trust him with my life." Congresswoman Ruth Pratt of New York was supposed to be another of his sponsors. Mysterious Mr. Rosner had been resident at the Lindbergh home a day or so before reporters spotted him. The next thing heard from him was when he spirited an unknown prisoner out of Manhattan's Tombs in the dead of night--no one knew why. He was also credited with inserting the following cryptic notice in the agony column of the New York American:

Letter received at new address. Will follow your instructions. I also received letter mailed to me March 4 and was ready since then. Please hurry on account of mother. Address me to the address you mention in your letter. Father.

Followed another:

Money is ready. Jafsie.

Before dropping once more out of view last week, mysterious Mr. Rosner issued an unauthorized statement to the effect that the Lindberghs had at last established contact with the abductors of their lost child, were sure that he was still alive.

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