September 28, 2022 • 40 mins
Chapin's successful journalism career crumbled as stress chipped away at his mental health, and he committed a terrible crime. But there were still surprises left to his story.
Research:
- “Of the Dynamite Explosion in Russell Sage’s Office.” The Leaf-Chronicle (Clarkeville, Tennessee). Dec. 7, 1891. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/353237459/?terms=%22russel%20sage%22&match=1
- “A Dynamite Bomb.” The Alliance Herald. Dec. 11, 1891. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/423611027/?terms=%22russel%20sage%22&match=1
- “City Slave Girls.” Saturday Evening Kansas Commoner. Aug. 24, 1888. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/382892220/?clipping_id=30641784&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjM4Mjg5MjIyMCwiaWF0IjoxNjYyNDY2MjA3LCJleHAiOjE2NjI1NTI2MDd9.eLdfDQGTjlV-7dafIRsWSWJokfMsSrhH2IM2_6e5T7M
- “New York World Editor Kills Wife.” Intelligencer Journal. Sept. 17, 1918. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/557223275/?terms=%22Charles%20E.%20Chapin%22&match=1
- Morris, James McGrath. “The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism.” Fordham University Press. 2003.
- Chapin, Charles. “Winnetka’s Horror.” Chicago Tribune. Feb. 14, 1884. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/349741239/?terms=Winnetka%27s%20Horror&match=1
- “Editor Chapin Sane.” Enid Daily Eagle. Dec. 17, 1918. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/608553349/?terms=%22Charles%20E.%20Chapin%22&match=1
- “Mrs. Macaulley’s Crime.” Chicago Tribune. Dec. 25, 1887. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/349513839/?terms=%22william%20macaulley%22&match=1
- Chapin, Charles E. “Charles Chapin's Story Written in Sing Sing Prison.” G.P. Putnam. 1920. Read online: https://books.google.com/books?id=UmZMAAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
- “Russell Sage’s Will.” The Ordway New Era. August 3, 1906. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=ONE19060803-01.2.45&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------0------
- Snow, Richard, “Charles Chapin.” American Heritage. December 1979. https://www.americanheritage.com/charles-chapin
- “Prisoner McKeague.” Chicago Tribune. February 26, 1884. https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/349741560/?terms=neal%20mckeague&match=1
- Roberts, Sam. “Archives From Prisons in New York Are Digitized.” New York Times. July 6, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/07/nyregion/new-york-prison-archives-are-digitized-by-ancestry-com.html
- Wingfield, Valerie. “The General Slocum Disaster of June 15, 1904.” New York Public Library. June 13, 2011. https://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/06/13/great-slocum-disaster-june-15-1904
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Uh. Today
we are picking up our coverage of Charles Chapin and
heads Up in case you don't recall from the first one,
(00:24):
this two part episode involves not only murder, but also
discussion of suicide and a lot of mental instability. So
uh know that going in, we are, as I said,
picking up with the life of Charles Chapin, and we're
jumping right back into chapin story. So if you missed
part one, we highly suggest you go back and start there,
or this will have no context whatsoever. You will just
(00:46):
spontaneously be working with Joseph Bullitzer out of nowhere, uh
where we left off. Chapin, after making a name for
himself in the St. Louis news business, had been summoned
soon Do York by Joseph Pulitzer in a telegram that
conveyed a sense of urgency to the whole situation. This
was March of Pulleitzer had asked Charles Chapin to get
(01:10):
on a train that very night, if at all possible.
What Chapin would learn when he got there was that
the managing editor of The New York World, Ernest Chamberlain,
had prematurely run a special edition of the paper, reporting
in bold headlines that war had been declared. This is
in the wake of the sinking of the USS Main
(01:32):
and Havannah Harbor, and most journalists saw the Spanish American
War as inevitable, but it had not actually begun yet.
The sinking of the Main and the impending conflict had
been big news all over the US. Chapin had been
working on his papers coverage of it when Pulitzer telegrammed,
but Chamberlain had really jumped the gun here. He had
(01:55):
been working round the clock and had run himself into
the ground. He was really not well at this point.
He died of pneumonia soon after this errant special edition
had gone to press. But Pulitzer had another problem. In
addition to that empty editor's chair, he was also in
the midst of his rivalry with William Randolph Hurst, who
(02:17):
had moved into the New York journalism scene with a
lot of money and a desire to dominate park Row,
and Pulitzer felt like the only person who could keep
Hurst's papers in check was Charles Chapin. To make this
daunting task worthwhile. Chapin was offered a salary of one
hundred dollars a week. Foster Coates was hired as managing editor,
(02:38):
and Chapin was the city editor in charge of the
evening editions. As the rivalry between Hurst and Pulitzer ramped up,
the news business became a frantic, constant stream of extra additions,
round the clock, staff stealing stories from each other and
running so many papers that readers just could not keep up.
(03:01):
Sometimes a new edition was hitting the street almost hourly
if there was a big story developing. Pulitzer developed an
elaborate code for his employees, giving different editions code names
and the editors being nicknamed as well, so that any
eavesdroppers wouldn't be able to understand what they were hearing.
No telegraph operators could blab any secrets they heard either. Yeah,
(03:25):
Pulitzer's code name was Andy's in all of this, and
Chapin was Pinch. Chapin, though, made the exact same mistake
that Ernest Chamberlain had. He was working from four am
until well into the night as the Spanish American war
finally did begin and play out, and when that conflict ended,
(03:45):
Chapin was a wreck. He had pneumonia and he was
put on bed rest. But Chapin did recover, and he
returned to work as an editor at New York World.
Chapin became a legend of journalism. By all accounts, he
was powerful, terrifying, and really good at his job. Irvin S. Cobb,
one of the writers who worked for Chapin, once wrote
(04:06):
of him, quote, Chapin walked alone, a tremendously competent, sometimes
an almost inspired tyrant, and then even more descriptive. Quote
in him was combined something of Caligula, something of Don Juan,
a touch of the Barnum, a dash of Narcissus, a
spicing of Machiavelli. Similarly, Stanley Walker, who was city editor
(04:29):
of the Harold Tribune, wrote quote, even his laugh, usually
directed as something sacred, is part sneer. His terrible curses
caused flowers to wither, as grass died under the hoofbeats
of the horse of Attila. The hun A chilly, monstrous figure, sleepless, nerveless,
and facing with ribald mockery, the certain hell which awaits
(04:50):
him but there were journalists who knew this reputation and
still desperately wanted to work with him. Despite his brash manner,
Chapin was so well respected that he was able to
lure some of the best journalists away from HER's papers.
To be clear, the people who worked for Chapin did
not like him, but they got a certain degree of
(05:12):
clout from working for him. Despite the stress of the
world's culture and Chapin's unrelenting expectations, he was known to
fire people with no warning, sometimes for reasons that would
be an HR fiasco today. On occasion, these were firings
he had been ordered to make due to budget cuts.
Although Joseph Pulitzer later told him he could push back
(05:34):
when he got those kinds of directives, he often did.
Chapin's approach to running a newsroom was different than other papers.
He is sometimes credited for being the first editor to
assign reporters to specific beats covering a regular territory or
subject matter, and he initially did this by just drawing
a grid on a map of the city and giving
(05:54):
each block of the grid to a reporter, and then
those reporters were held responsible for making sure anything that
happened in their section of grid that was newsworthy got covered.
But here's what was really unusual. Those reporters didn't usually
write the stories. They would call into the newsroom with
details they had gathered, and then an assigned writer would
(06:16):
assemble that information into a story. Those positions came to
be called rewriters. Chapenhead embraced the telephone. He had telephones
installed in the newsroom to speed up the delivery of
information to the news desks. Reporters were to call in
regularly with information as part of their daily routine, and
because of his telephone relay system, the Evening Paper became
(06:39):
more and more profitable as it outpaced competitors on scoops.
People also started calling in with tips, which further expanded
Shapen's lead over other papers when it came to getting
stories out first. In nineteen two, Junior, as the Evening
Paper was called, was making a two hundred thousand dollar profit. Yeah.
(06:59):
He the news room always had a writer just hanging
and ready in case anything came in at any hour
of the day or night. Charles Chapin, though, was not
only a boss who barked orders. He was perfectly happy
to take interviews or reports and write up those stories
himself quickly and with a style that consistently engaged readers.
(07:21):
He was so good in his role as city editor
that Pulitzer had been reluctant to promote him and lose
out on that hands on approach, and this led to
some friction at times because Chapin got passed over for
promotions that went to lesser qualified candidates. There was even
an internal memo that was prepped for Pulitzer that outlined
the ways in which Chapin got more perks and money
(07:42):
and took more time off than any other employee. These
were sort of talking points he could point out to
Chapin if he made a lot of fuss about it,
but that memo also acknowledged that Chapin was easily the
most valuable asset that they had in the newsroom. Chapin
continued to make his case, but eventually he kind of
dropped it when he felt like he was just getting nowhere,
and he also worried he might be risking Pulitzer getting
(08:04):
annoyed by him. During the nineteen o four General Slocum disaster,
in which a pleasure cruise charted by St. Mark's Evangelical
Lutheran church went up in flames on the East River,
killing almost fourteen hundred people. Chapin was there, taking the
relay and writing up the grizzly details. The report was
so bad that even the person who called in the
(08:26):
tip became overwhelmed by the horrors he was seeing and
hung up. The Evening World was the first paper to
go to print with the story thanks to the telephone account.
While there had been mixed feelings about Chapin's telephone system
within the organization, the achievement of being first on such
a big news story justified its use. Chapin's contract was
(08:47):
renewed with a clause that he wouldn't go to work
for any other paper for several years. Joseph Pulitzer's son,
Joseph Jr. Became a new project for Chapin at this point,
and that was a project that did not go particularly well.
The younger Pulitzer had been enrolled at Harvard, but he
had not been bothering to go to class, so his
father sent him to work in Chapin's newsroom, thinking that
(09:10):
might be a valuable education, and he instructed Chapin to
show no partiality to his son. He may or may
not have regretted that. Later Joe Jr. Was sometimes late,
something Chapin hated, and then on occasion he failed to
show up at all. And for Chapin, these were fire
able offenses normally, but because of who this employee was,
he tried to talk sense into him. And the thing was,
(09:33):
the younger Pulitzer was apparently a pretty naturally talented reporter,
so Chapin also kind of wanted to encourage him because
he did do that with young reporters. He would find
them and kind of teach them the business. After many
infractions though of the editor's rules, it was finally a
week of unexplained absence that got Pulitzer's son fired. Pulitzer
(09:54):
Senior backed up Chapin on this decision. In a moment,
we'll discuss Chapin's relationship with as great uncle after his
return to New York, but first we will pause for
a sponsor break. Shapen had, in his time back in
(10:16):
New York reconnected with his great uncle Russell Sage. We
talked about him in Part one. That reconnection had been
a little bit tenuous because in the wake of the
attack on Sage's office that we mentioned in Part one.
One of Sage's employees who had been seriously injured by
that blast, had received no financial assistance from his employer,
and he sued Sage over it. The article that Chapin
(10:39):
had written after interviewing his great uncle had described him
as quote vigorous. This article was used against Sage in
court because he had attempted to deflect the accusations against
him by saying that he was in his own state
of difficulty after the incident and that he was not
aware of his employee struggles. So Charles had avoided any
(10:59):
discussion and of the entire situation, and that had really
deeply damaged Sage's reputation. He focused instead on just spending
time with them whenever possible and endearing himself to the
old man. Chapin recounted in his memoir that he took
Russell for his first ride in an automobile. For example,
(11:19):
Chapin believed that Sage was going to leave him a
fortune when he died, yeah, and allegedly Sage had hinted
that at as much Russell. Sage died on July twenty
sCOD nineteen o six. He was ninety all of New
York wondered what was contained in his will, which was
rumored to have been rewritten just a few years before
his death. But no one was more expectant about its
(11:42):
contents than Charlie Chapin, and rumors started to circulate that
the wealthy finance here had actually left all of his
fortune to charity. Chapin was tense, and he actually had
the death announcement of his great uncle rewritten twice by
one of his writers, first casting stage as astute and
completely in command of his faculties to his last breath,
(12:04):
then as having been senile and of questionable mental acuity,
before then going back to the more flattering version, which
apparently had to be pulled out of a trash can.
After several days of waiting, the contents of the will
were revealed, and it was not what Shapin had hoped.
Russell Sage had left almost everything to his wife. The
exception was a few small bequeathments. His sister, who had
(12:28):
died before him, was left ten thousand dollars. His nieces
and nephews each got twenty five thousand dollars. That point
was particularly painful for Tapin because his father, who had abandoned,
the family was still alive, and he got his inheritance.
Nothing was left to charity, although Mrs Sage used her
inheritance largely in service of others. When Tapin ran the story,
(12:52):
he included that the relatives had been left out and
that some were preparing to contest the will. According to
the storage shape and ran, each relative had expected a
million dollars. Of course, this is incredibly inappropriate by today's
journalistic standards. Chapin was reporting his own desires essentially as
(13:13):
though they were fact. Also, just in general, this was
a story that he had a vested interest in himself
that he doesn't seem to have disclosed. This was a
just a widely read and influential paper For this to
be playing out in Earl arranged for his inheritance to
be dispersed to Chapin's mother and siblings, but nothing to Charles.
(13:34):
The logic was that he had a fancy, high paying
job and the rest of them needed money, and Chapin
had money. He had been putting it away over the years,
according to his account, although others thought he may have
been paid off for various stories rather than accumulating his
wealth slowly over time, but in the decade following his
(13:55):
father's death, which happened very shortly after Russell's stage, Chapin
started using that money to make investments in the hopes
of growing his fortunes so he could live the lavish
life that he always dreamed of. In seven the Champains
had moved into the Plaza hotel they actually got to
move in before it was even open, and Charles had
acquired numerous high price luxuries like a yacht and horses.
(14:19):
He traveled in elite circles of wealth, and he wore
custom tailored clothes as he did then. In nineteen o nine,
during a turbulent time for The New York World in
which Pulitzer was in hot water with Theodore Roosevelt, the
staff was reorganized. Chapin was put in charge of the
morning paper, with authority over all the other editions as needed.
(14:41):
Chapin eliminated the day and night city editor positions and
filled those spots with assistants who reported to him. He
also shifted his favorite writers to salaried positions from freelance,
and he hired a lot of new people. He had
hired established writers that what were considered very high rate
of seventy dollars to eighty dollars a week. He also
(15:03):
hired writers fresh out of school at very low rates
to learn the trade and to be trained at the World.
Chapin status is temporary or permanent in the job was
definitely something that seemed to be up in the air
and discussions between him and Pulitzer, and there was definitely
friction and resistance within the staff of the Morning Edition
(15:24):
who were just not as eager to bend to Chapin's
will as the Evening Edition staff had been. Nine months
into the job, Chapin moved back to the Evening World
In Chapin once again seemed to be standing where lightning
metaphorically struck, at least in terms of news scoops. Mayor
William J. Gaynor had recently been elected with the backing
(15:45):
of Tammany Hall, and as part of coverage of the
new mayor, Chapin had a reporter interview him just before
he left on a European trip, and he sent a
photographer named William Warnicky to photograph the mayor at the
Hoboken Pier where he was to depart. Because of that
random assignment, more nicky in the Evening World got exclusive
(16:05):
photos of Mayor Gainer as he was shot by an
angry city employee. Chapin is famously quoted as saying when
he saw the photos, quote look blood all over him
and exclusive too. Had Gainer not survived that shooting, that
would have been even more callous and grim than it was.
Pulitzer died the following year, in nineteen eleven, on his
(16:28):
yacht as it was anchored off the South Carolina coast.
During the funeral, the World Offices shut off all the
presses and phones and observed a five minutes silence in
the dark. Chapin later wrote that he felt that his
spirit had been buried with Pulitzer. Even so, he continued
in his role with the paper. When the Titanic sank,
(16:49):
Chapin had, by random happenstance, known a reporter who was
on board the Carpathia, which took on survivors of the
Titanic tragedy. Carlos F. Heard and his wife Kathleen spoke
with the survivors, and they were able to assemble the
first detailed account of what had happened on board the
doomed ship. But the captain of the Carpathia forbid any
(17:10):
telegraph communication from going out, and he also didn't want
their rescued passengers to be bothered, so he issued an
order that the herds were not to be given any papers,
so they couldn't write anything down. Still, they worked to
document everything that unfolded on whatever scraps they could find
New York newsrooms. At this point, we're running kind of
(17:30):
on pure speculation because information had been limited to one
Associated Press bulletin that was very thin on details. It
mentioned that it had struck an iceberg, but basically nothing else.
It had nothing about the face of anyone on board.
And as the Carpathia returned to New York, papers actually
sent out boats to meet them in the water to
try to get this story. No wires were leaving the Carpathia,
(17:54):
but a wire did go out to Carlos Herd to
tell him Chapin was coming to meet a boat. Heard
never actually got that wire, but he knew Chapin's reputation
and correctly assumed that he was coming to meet him.
To be safe, he bundled his five thousand words story
into waterproof canvas and attached champagne corks to it. So
(18:17):
that if he had to throw it to Chapin and
it hit the water, it wouldn't sink. Chapin's tug was
racing a similar boat that was carrying reporters from Hurst's papers.
Although there were a lot of close misses, Chapin did
take possession of the story when it was flung overboard,
marked it up for the type setters while the tug
made its way to the docks, so the World's extra
(18:39):
edition covering the tragedy was being handed out to readers
before the Carpathia even docked. No other reporters even had
a chance to get a quote. At that point. Heard
was able to purchase a copy of his own story
as he left the ship and headed into the city. Yeah,
this is that story of all of the newspapers trying
(19:01):
to get out to the Carpathia is bananas. There are
literally ships ramming each other as they try to get
out there. Even when Heard had thrown his bundle overboard,
it got caught on a wire and one of the
sailors went out to get it, and the Carpathias captain
is yelling at him to bring it back, and the
passengers are yelling no, throw it down, and he the sailor,
(19:25):
threw it down to Chapin, and like the ink was
not even dry on the additions they were handing out
there at the dock. It was like one of those
like watershed moments in journalism for a lot of people,
because it uh it was astonishing that it happened. So
while Chapin's life was seemingly one success after another, he
(19:47):
was spending the fruits of his labor far faster than
they were coming in. His debt was mounting, Several of
his investments had sunk, and he was losing money in
the stock market, but he continued to live the life
of a millionaire. And one of the things that he
had done in all of this was take assets from
the trust that was intended for the estate of his
(20:08):
youngest sister, Edna. That was a daughter that his father
had after he had started his second family. But at
this point Edna was almost twenty one. That was the
age when her trust and its investments would be assessed
and accounted for and handed over to her, and Chapin
had no way to replace what he had taken. Additionally,
creditors were coming after him. He had such good instincts
(20:29):
for news, but none of that transferred over to finances.
He had no instincts in that space. Chapin resolved to
end his life. He put in a call to the
police station where he had friends, and said that he
needed a revolver. He had no permit for one, but
he was told to come down to the nearby police
office where he would be set up with one. He
(20:50):
and Nellie went to Washington via train. Charles came down
with the flu on the way and was confined to bed.
Once they arrived, he started to think about Nellie. What
would happen to her if he was dead. She had
no real support system and she wasn't in good health,
and he believed he would have to end both of
their lives to spare her the misery of destitution without
(21:14):
him to support her. She had no idea what their
financial situation was. The night Shapin intended to do this,
He had the revolver under his pillow as Nellie slept
beside him. When he put his hand on the gun, though,
he had a vision of his mother, young and beautiful,
shaking her head at him, so he abandoned the plan,
(21:34):
at least for a moment. As the following days played out,
Chapin became increasingly paranoid. He believed he was being followed,
and he finally, in a park, told Nellie all of
their problems and about his intention to end his own life.
He did not share with her that he had also
planned to kill her. Nellie was surely shocked by this information,
(21:54):
but she seems to have really kept quite a level head.
She told her husband that he had probably doably magnified
his troubles by keeping them to himself and letting them stew,
and that they just needed to return to New York
and meet with a lawyer friend and talk this whole
thing through, and Chapin did just that. He also reached
out to a friend in the tobacco industry for help,
who told him instantly he would do anything to get
(22:17):
Chapin out of trouble. And the lawyer had advised him like,
just come clean, say you used money from that estate
and that you were going to pay it back. And
so this tobacco friend basically enabled Charlie to replace the
missing trust funds with a financial gift, and then he
was able to wrap up his sibling and his trust
and be free of it, which was a huge burden
off his back, and life for a time went back
(22:39):
to normal. But several years later, and as the summer
of nineteen eighteen came to an end, Chapin was once
again in hot water. Financially. He had sold off a
lot of his luxury items to try to stay afloat.
He was still deeply in debt and creditors were threatening
to garnish his wages. He knew he would be fired
once this story he went public, and so once again
(23:02):
he decided that he needed to end his life and Nellie's.
In the early morning hours of September six, nine eighteen,
Charles shot Nellie as she slept. In addition to the
note that he wrote Carlos Sites, which we read at
the beginning of the first part of this he wrote
another to a friend, Harry Stimpson, confessing what he had done,
(23:23):
writing quote, for a long time, I have been unable
to sleep. My nerves are unstrung. I am tortured with pain.
My wife died this morning in a few minutes, I
also shall be dead. After writing these letters, Tapin got
dressed and put a do not disturb sign on the
hotel door and left with his revolver in his pocket.
(23:44):
He posted his letter to Sites and headed to Central
Park when that's where he intended to take his own life,
but he started having hallucinations. He saw hands reaching out
to grab him and thought they were reaching into his
pocket to take the gun. He kept wandering, eventually making
his way to Brooklyn, although he wasn't totally aware of
(24:05):
where he was. He had the gun pointed at himself
when a policeman walked by him, and he panicked and
put the weapon back in his pocket. Then he headed
for the subway. At one point, as he rode the train,
he described coming to the belief that he was already dead,
and in the meantime, as he was having this walk
(24:25):
about around New York, his letter to Sites had been delivered.
As a consequence, Nellie's body had been found, and alert
was put out that Chapin was either dead or he
was wandering the city armed and dangerous. When Chapin got
off the train near his office in the morning, he
bought a copy of the New York Times, and he
saw in its pages the headline wife of editor shot
(24:47):
dead in bed. He read in that paper the very
note that he had sent to Sites, and then after
vacillating over whether to turn himself in or kill himself,
Chapin went to the West sixty eight police station and
demanded to see the captain. When it seemed that he
was not going to be taken to the captain, he
told the lieutenant at the desk quote, I am Mr
(25:09):
Chapin of the New York Evening World, and I have
just killed my wife. We'll get to the aftermath of
this entire upsetting event after we take a break to
hear from the sponsors that keep stuffy missed in history
class going. When Chapin turned himself in, it was unsurprisingly
(25:35):
very big news, but in the case of a man
who had been the scourge of so many of New
York City's journalists, it was kind of a heyday hearst.
Papers were eager to run the story as fast as
they could, and in the case of the New York
Evening Journal, they ran the story of Chapin's confession right
next to the story that police were still looking for
Chapin because they didn't take the time to remove the
(25:56):
first one. In his statements to police, Chapin continue need
to insist that he had killed Nellie because he wanted
to save her from a pauper's life, insisting quote, I
idolized my wife. She was the only thing I lived for.
She was my life, my religion, and the only thing
I lived for. Chapin confessed everything, all the money he
(26:18):
had borrowed, his overdrawn accounts, his attempts to hide his
financial ruin, and his decision to end everything. The paper
sent their lawyer to represent him. Chapin asked the district
attorney if he could attend Nelly's funeral and offered to
waive his right to a trial and to go directly
to the execution. That offer was not accepted. He would
(26:39):
make that request repeatedly in the days before Nellie was buried,
but he was denied every time. In his cell, Chapin
asked to see the papers, and he read all of
the coverage of his crime and declined all interview requests. Meanwhile,
reporters were trying to piece together Chapin's last days and
figure out just how bad is financial situation was. There
(27:02):
were even requests posted in the papers that his creditors
should contact reporters because Chapin had destroyed most of his
personal papers, so they had nothing to go on. Interestingly enough,
no creditors ever came forward to reporters. Chapin's legal team
insisted that their client was not in his right mind
and was in no state to stand trial. This claim
(27:24):
was supported by the fact that Chapin continually said he
wanted to go to the electric chair. He insisted that
he was perfectly sane and that he didn't want a
sanity commission. One was assigned, though, in mid October, papers
around the country ran the findings of the commission. On
December seventeen, quote Charles E. Chapin, former city editor of
(27:45):
the New York Evening World, who confessed to having shot
and killed his wife at the Hotel Cumberland September six,
has been found legally sane, according to the report of
a Lunacy commission filed today. As trial was set to
begin on January twenty, nineteen nineteen, Chapin, however, consented to
(28:05):
a plea deal, which was submitted on January fourteenth. He
confessed to the murder and was sentenced to prison and
hard labor for a minimum of twenty years and a
maximum of his natural life. The press had been anticipating
a trial, and all of the stories that it would generate,
but Chapin had cut them off one last time. When
(28:26):
Chapin was recorded as an incoming inmate at Austining Correctional
Facility known even then as Sing Sing which is its
name today, he was listed as a widower. His prison
term started two days after he had received his sentence,
and he was sixty years old. Chapin's prison time was
vastly different from other Sing Sing inmates. He and the
(28:47):
warden Lewis Laws had become fast friends when Chapin began
his incarceration, and as a consequence, over time, Charles was
allowed to kind of do more or less as he
pleased within the walls of the prison. He had been
assigned of the prison library as his job rather than
actual hard labor, and he was given a pension from
the paper which enabled him to purchase things in the
(29:07):
prison store. On the suggestion of a friend, he started
writing his autobiography. That book, Charles Chapin Story Written in
Sing Sing Prison, was published in He also became the
editor of the prison newspaper, and for that job he
got in office. A colleague who once visited him noted
that that was a nicer office than the one he
(29:29):
had had at The New York World. The move into
the paper's office reinvigorated Chapin from the years before he
murdered Nelly. Up through his arrest and sentencing, he'd been
in sort of a torpor, but being back in the
business of editing a paper, even just the Sing Sing
Bulletin brought out some of Chapin's former energy. That meant
(29:50):
he also wrote most of it, because he found the
writing of his fellow inmates was not up to his standards.
The paper lasted less than a year and a half
before it was shut down by the state superintendent, but
Chapin was allowed to keep the office. Chapin found penpal
romance in prison twice. The first of his prison romances
was with a woman named Viola Irene Cooper. She had
(30:13):
written him first, wanting to learn more about him, and
he had responded with a startling level of vulnerability, writing quote,
I am more lonely than any person you may know,
so lonely that I am even now reaching out my
arm to clasp your hand, hoping you will let me
hold it in mind for just a little while. Chapin
sent Cooper, who was twenty four, his book. Although he
(30:35):
feared that once she read it, she would lose interest
in him, but she did not. She saw him in
her own word, as an olympian of writing, which was
her chosen profession as well. The two traded letters, and
they built dreams of living together in a cabin in
the woods. Viola came to visit him numerous times, but
it didn't last. Their relationship ended when Viola, still young
(30:58):
and still very much seeking adventure, set sail for Fiji
aboard the wind jammer bouguin Villa. The second woman Chapin
had a penpal romance with was Constance are Nelson, who
worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. She had
reached out to him after reading his autobiography. She asked
him to help with editing stories about banking. As with Cooper,
(31:20):
Chapin quickly took a familiar and romantic tone with Constance,
and before long the two of them were trading their
favorite novels. He was putting her photo across from him
at dinner and writing her passionate love letters. Nelson first
visited him in June of n and this was the
first of many visits. Constance was greeted by the warden
(31:42):
for lunch, almost as if she was visiting family, and
she and Chapin had time together in the morning. In
the afternoon, Constance also made a point to reach out
to Charles's family and even to visit Nellie's grave and
put flowers there. Yeah, she really seemed fairly committed to
this whole idea that she wanted to be in his life.
But perhaps the most surprising thing that Chapin did at
(32:04):
Sing Sing was gardening. The prison yard at Sing Sing
was large. It's been described as about the same area
of two football fields, and for a long time it
was very empty. There was a small garden at one
point near one of the buildings, but that was it.
And when Chapin had seemed extremely sullen one day, the
prison chaplain who he had become friends with, had suggested
(32:25):
he tried digging a little garden to get some fresh
air and possibly feel a little better. Chapin told him
he wasn't interested, but Father Cashion brought him gardening tools anyway,
and Chapin grudgingly used them, only to discover he really
enjoyed gardening and found it therapeutic. Soon he asked the
warden if he could be assigned to care for the
(32:45):
prisons lawns, and before long Chapin was drawing up designs
to fill the empty barren space of the prison yard.
When a local nursery discovered that he was trying to
expand the prisons green space, they sent a truckload of plants. Soon,
Chapin was reaching out to other people who might be
able to donate bulbs, seedlings, and supplies. Horticulturalists shared Chapin's
(33:08):
needs and wish lists among their various groups and friend circles,
and they eventually created a network of donators. Chapin's designed
for the prison yard to be transformed into a rose
garden was published by the American Rose Society, and their
annual there was a call with that for plant donations.
(33:28):
Chapin's efforts had so successfully transformed the prison that the
warden arranged for a greenhouse to be built. As winter
approach that year, Chapin called it the Rosary and started
taking his meals there. One of the really interesting details
of Chapin's makeover the prison grounds was the thoughtful way
that the landscaping had been planned, as it led to
(33:50):
what was called the death house. That was the area
of the facility where executions were carried out, and Chapin
had designed this space so that year round, a condemned
man's last view of the rolled outside that building would
be filled with beautiful flowers. In the gardens were coming
together so nicely that they were photographed by House and Garden.
Japan was in the papers again, but this time only
(34:12):
for his flowers. They had frequent visitors in the form
of horticulture enthusiasts and reporters for gardening magazines. Chapin started
to hope that all the positive publicity might help him
gain a pardon so that he, in Constance could start
a life together, and they had a lot of supporters
who lobbied for this on his behalf. Chapin wrote during
(34:33):
this time about how very much he had changed and
pondered how gardening had been the key to that change quote,
roses respond to me when all else fails. Park Row
would never recognize me. I don't even know myself. And
to think I have changed in so short a time,
do you think that growing flowers did it. As his
gardens had grown, people had started bringing him birds as well,
(34:57):
which he kept in the greenhouse, and he started showing
the birds to visitors with the same delight that he
shared his gardens. By the time Chapin had been incarcerated
for several years, he seemed to have gained a perspective
on his persona within the New York news scene. When
Irvin Cobb asked for a visit, the former editor initially refused,
but then he acquiesced, and he wrote a letter to
(35:18):
a friend about having done so. He wondered if Cobb
was looking for a way to quote get even for
the hard knocks he had when I was his boss. Yeah,
he realized he was a jerk um, whether or not
he regretted any of that. As another matter, Chapin's relationship
with Constance Nelson went through some strain. Chapin's assistant in
(35:40):
prison had been paroled, and that man turned to Constance
for help figuring out kind of how to fit into
the world outside, and she helped him out with money
and with clothing. But when Charles heard about this, he
assumed that there was something romantic between the two, and
he became very angry and jealous. He later told Constance
the jealousy was just part of passion. But they struggled
(36:02):
to find their former closeness again, and Chapin replied less
and less frequently to Constance's letters. In July of nine six,
Chapin became very ill and was diagnosed with acute guest stritis.
His health declined rapidly. At the same time, the prison
had become far too attractive to visitors who wanted to
(36:22):
see the gardens, and the warden had to end the
flower tours because there simply wasn't enough staff to watch
the tourists and the residents, although occasionally journalists are still
allowed to visit for stories. As Chapin approached his seventieth
birthday in late nine he seemed to have abandoned the
idea of a partner parole. When a reporter asked him
(36:45):
if he had thought about what would happen to his
birds and flowers if he were to be released, Chapin
told him quote, I do not believe I would care
to leave here if I could. He occasionally wrote letters
to Constance, but they seemed more critical and chastising than
conciliatory in nature. Yeah, he basically blamed her for their strains.
(37:07):
When an unknowing contractor drove a steam shovel through Chapin's
Rose Garden as part of a new drainage project for
the prison in late nineteen thirty. It destroyed some of
his work, and it really devastated Shapin. He had been
in poor health already with a stomach ailment, but this
moment where he saw his garden destroyed, seemed to be
the straw that broke the camel's back when it came
(37:29):
to his spirit. His health degraded rapidly, although he refused
to go to the prison hospital, and after several months
of being confined to bed visibly weakening, Chapin died on
December nine, thirty of bronchial pneumonia. His last words, which
he spoke to the warden, were quote, I want to die.
I want to get it over with. Chapin had laid
(37:50):
out his desire as at a letter to the warden
to be opened after his death. He didn't want a
funeral service. He wanted the least expensive coffin possible, and
most importantly, he wanted to be buried next to Nellie
in Glenwood Cemetery. His body was shipped to Washington, d c.
In accordance with that wish, and that was accompanied by
(38:11):
a wreath of roses that had come from his garden.
He's a wild ride. I have so many thoughts. I
do too, and most of them are not No, I'm
not flattering in any way. No, I will talk about
all this and behind the scenes as show um I
(38:32):
as a little bit of a bomb for this strange story.
I have a delightful listener mail which is from our
listener Gina. He says, Hi, Holly and Tracy, I just
listened to your episode on the invention of the dishwasher,
and I was tickled to hear the mention of Josephine
cochrd's grandfather, John Fitch. As you mentioned, he was instrumental
in the invention of the steam locomotive. Perhaps he deserves
(38:53):
his own episode. I live in the town where he
was born, and I also happened to live in the
house where he was born, or sort of, as the
original house was torn down. My house was built in
the nineteen fifties. I have attached a photo of his
memorial that lives in my front yard. It looks a
lot like a tombstone, and we get plenty of double
takes as people walk or drive by. My husband's spruced
(39:15):
it up a bit with some flowers and molts. But
I told him not to make it look too nice
because by all accounts, John Fitch was a deadbeat dad
and not a very nice man. Thank you for all
of your hard work on the show. I was able
to attend a live show pre pandemic, and I feel
so lucky to have been able to meet you too.
Thank you so much for this note and this photo. Uh,
(39:37):
it looks sprucy to me, so um. Hopefully we will
get to do live events again and see many more listeners.
But we'll just see what the future holds. Uh. In
the meantime, if you would like to write to us,
you can do so at History Podcast at ihart radio
dot com. You can also find us on social media
as Missed in History, and if you haven't subscribed, can
(40:00):
do that on the I heart Radio app or wherever
you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Uh. Today
we are picking up our coverage of Charles Chapin and
heads Up in case you don't recall from the first one,
(00:24):
this two part episode involves not only murder, but also
discussion of suicide and a lot of mental instability. So
uh know that going in, we are, as I said,
picking up with the life of Charles Chapin, and we're
jumping right back into chapin story. So if you missed
part one, we highly suggest you go back and start there,
or this will have no context whatsoever. You will just
(00:46):
spontaneously be working with Joseph Bullitzer out of nowhere, uh
where we left off. Chapin, after making a name for
himself in the St. Louis news business, had been summoned
soon Do York by Joseph Pulitzer in a telegram that
conveyed a sense of urgency to the whole situation. This
was March of Pulleitzer had asked Charles Chapin to get
(01:10):
on a train that very night, if at all possible.
What Chapin would learn when he got there was that
the managing editor of The New York World, Ernest Chamberlain,
had prematurely run a special edition of the paper, reporting
in bold headlines that war had been declared. This is
in the wake of the sinking of the USS Main
(01:32):
and Havannah Harbor, and most journalists saw the Spanish American
War as inevitable, but it had not actually begun yet.
The sinking of the Main and the impending conflict had
been big news all over the US. Chapin had been
working on his papers coverage of it when Pulitzer telegrammed,
but Chamberlain had really jumped the gun here. He had
(01:55):
been working round the clock and had run himself into
the ground. He was really not well at this point.
He died of pneumonia soon after this errant special edition
had gone to press. But Pulitzer had another problem. In
addition to that empty editor's chair, he was also in
the midst of his rivalry with William Randolph Hurst, who
(02:17):
had moved into the New York journalism scene with a
lot of money and a desire to dominate park Row,
and Pulitzer felt like the only person who could keep
Hurst's papers in check was Charles Chapin. To make this
daunting task worthwhile. Chapin was offered a salary of one
hundred dollars a week. Foster Coates was hired as managing editor,
(02:38):
and Chapin was the city editor in charge of the
evening editions. As the rivalry between Hurst and Pulitzer ramped up,
the news business became a frantic, constant stream of extra additions,
round the clock, staff stealing stories from each other and
running so many papers that readers just could not keep up.
(03:01):
Sometimes a new edition was hitting the street almost hourly
if there was a big story developing. Pulitzer developed an
elaborate code for his employees, giving different editions code names
and the editors being nicknamed as well, so that any
eavesdroppers wouldn't be able to understand what they were hearing.
No telegraph operators could blab any secrets they heard either. Yeah,
(03:25):
Pulitzer's code name was Andy's in all of this, and
Chapin was Pinch. Chapin, though, made the exact same mistake
that Ernest Chamberlain had. He was working from four am
until well into the night as the Spanish American war
finally did begin and play out, and when that conflict ended,
(03:45):
Chapin was a wreck. He had pneumonia and he was
put on bed rest. But Chapin did recover, and he
returned to work as an editor at New York World.
Chapin became a legend of journalism. By all accounts, he
was powerful, terrifying, and really good at his job. Irvin S. Cobb,
one of the writers who worked for Chapin, once wrote
(04:06):
of him, quote, Chapin walked alone, a tremendously competent, sometimes
an almost inspired tyrant, and then even more descriptive. Quote
in him was combined something of Caligula, something of Don Juan,
a touch of the Barnum, a dash of Narcissus, a
spicing of Machiavelli. Similarly, Stanley Walker, who was city editor
(04:29):
of the Harold Tribune, wrote quote, even his laugh, usually
directed as something sacred, is part sneer. His terrible curses
caused flowers to wither, as grass died under the hoofbeats
of the horse of Attila. The hun A chilly, monstrous figure, sleepless, nerveless,
and facing with ribald mockery, the certain hell which awaits
(04:50):
him but there were journalists who knew this reputation and
still desperately wanted to work with him. Despite his brash manner,
Chapin was so well respected that he was able to
lure some of the best journalists away from HER's papers.
To be clear, the people who worked for Chapin did
not like him, but they got a certain degree of
(05:12):
clout from working for him. Despite the stress of the
world's culture and Chapin's unrelenting expectations, he was known to
fire people with no warning, sometimes for reasons that would
be an HR fiasco today. On occasion, these were firings
he had been ordered to make due to budget cuts.
Although Joseph Pulitzer later told him he could push back
(05:34):
when he got those kinds of directives, he often did.
Chapin's approach to running a newsroom was different than other papers.
He is sometimes credited for being the first editor to
assign reporters to specific beats covering a regular territory or
subject matter, and he initially did this by just drawing
a grid on a map of the city and giving
(05:54):
each block of the grid to a reporter, and then
those reporters were held responsible for making sure anything that
happened in their section of grid that was newsworthy got covered.
But here's what was really unusual. Those reporters didn't usually
write the stories. They would call into the newsroom with
details they had gathered, and then an assigned writer would
(06:16):
assemble that information into a story. Those positions came to
be called rewriters. Chapenhead embraced the telephone. He had telephones
installed in the newsroom to speed up the delivery of
information to the news desks. Reporters were to call in
regularly with information as part of their daily routine, and
because of his telephone relay system, the Evening Paper became
(06:39):
more and more profitable as it outpaced competitors on scoops.
People also started calling in with tips, which further expanded
Shapen's lead over other papers when it came to getting
stories out first. In nineteen two, Junior, as the Evening
Paper was called, was making a two hundred thousand dollar profit. Yeah.
(06:59):
He the news room always had a writer just hanging
and ready in case anything came in at any hour
of the day or night. Charles Chapin, though, was not
only a boss who barked orders. He was perfectly happy
to take interviews or reports and write up those stories
himself quickly and with a style that consistently engaged readers.
(07:21):
He was so good in his role as city editor
that Pulitzer had been reluctant to promote him and lose
out on that hands on approach, and this led to
some friction at times because Chapin got passed over for
promotions that went to lesser qualified candidates. There was even
an internal memo that was prepped for Pulitzer that outlined
the ways in which Chapin got more perks and money
(07:42):
and took more time off than any other employee. These
were sort of talking points he could point out to
Chapin if he made a lot of fuss about it,
but that memo also acknowledged that Chapin was easily the
most valuable asset that they had in the newsroom. Chapin
continued to make his case, but eventually he kind of
dropped it when he felt like he was just getting nowhere,
and he also worried he might be risking Pulitzer getting
(08:04):
annoyed by him. During the nineteen o four General Slocum disaster,
in which a pleasure cruise charted by St. Mark's Evangelical
Lutheran church went up in flames on the East River,
killing almost fourteen hundred people. Chapin was there, taking the
relay and writing up the grizzly details. The report was
so bad that even the person who called in the
(08:26):
tip became overwhelmed by the horrors he was seeing and
hung up. The Evening World was the first paper to
go to print with the story thanks to the telephone account.
While there had been mixed feelings about Chapin's telephone system
within the organization, the achievement of being first on such
a big news story justified its use. Chapin's contract was
(08:47):
renewed with a clause that he wouldn't go to work
for any other paper for several years. Joseph Pulitzer's son,
Joseph Jr. Became a new project for Chapin at this point,
and that was a project that did not go particularly well.
The younger Pulitzer had been enrolled at Harvard, but he
had not been bothering to go to class, so his
father sent him to work in Chapin's newsroom, thinking that
(09:10):
might be a valuable education, and he instructed Chapin to
show no partiality to his son. He may or may
not have regretted that. Later Joe Jr. Was sometimes late,
something Chapin hated, and then on occasion he failed to
show up at all. And for Chapin, these were fire
able offenses normally, but because of who this employee was,
he tried to talk sense into him. And the thing was,
(09:33):
the younger Pulitzer was apparently a pretty naturally talented reporter,
so Chapin also kind of wanted to encourage him because
he did do that with young reporters. He would find
them and kind of teach them the business. After many
infractions though of the editor's rules, it was finally a
week of unexplained absence that got Pulitzer's son fired. Pulitzer
(09:54):
Senior backed up Chapin on this decision. In a moment,
we'll discuss Chapin's relationship with as great uncle after his
return to New York, but first we will pause for
a sponsor break. Shapen had, in his time back in
(10:16):
New York reconnected with his great uncle Russell Sage. We
talked about him in Part one. That reconnection had been
a little bit tenuous because in the wake of the
attack on Sage's office that we mentioned in Part one.
One of Sage's employees who had been seriously injured by
that blast, had received no financial assistance from his employer,
and he sued Sage over it. The article that Chapin
(10:39):
had written after interviewing his great uncle had described him
as quote vigorous. This article was used against Sage in
court because he had attempted to deflect the accusations against
him by saying that he was in his own state
of difficulty after the incident and that he was not
aware of his employee struggles. So Charles had avoided any
(10:59):
discussion and of the entire situation, and that had really
deeply damaged Sage's reputation. He focused instead on just spending
time with them whenever possible and endearing himself to the
old man. Chapin recounted in his memoir that he took
Russell for his first ride in an automobile. For example,
(11:19):
Chapin believed that Sage was going to leave him a
fortune when he died, yeah, and allegedly Sage had hinted
that at as much Russell. Sage died on July twenty
sCOD nineteen o six. He was ninety all of New
York wondered what was contained in his will, which was
rumored to have been rewritten just a few years before
his death. But no one was more expectant about its
(11:42):
contents than Charlie Chapin, and rumors started to circulate that
the wealthy finance here had actually left all of his
fortune to charity. Chapin was tense, and he actually had
the death announcement of his great uncle rewritten twice by
one of his writers, first casting stage as astute and
completely in command of his faculties to his last breath,
(12:04):
then as having been senile and of questionable mental acuity,
before then going back to the more flattering version, which
apparently had to be pulled out of a trash can.
After several days of waiting, the contents of the will
were revealed, and it was not what Shapin had hoped.
Russell Sage had left almost everything to his wife. The
exception was a few small bequeathments. His sister, who had
(12:28):
died before him, was left ten thousand dollars. His nieces
and nephews each got twenty five thousand dollars. That point
was particularly painful for Tapin because his father, who had abandoned,
the family was still alive, and he got his inheritance.
Nothing was left to charity, although Mrs Sage used her
inheritance largely in service of others. When Tapin ran the story,
(12:52):
he included that the relatives had been left out and
that some were preparing to contest the will. According to
the storage shape and ran, each relative had expected a
million dollars. Of course, this is incredibly inappropriate by today's
journalistic standards. Chapin was reporting his own desires essentially as
(13:13):
though they were fact. Also, just in general, this was
a story that he had a vested interest in himself
that he doesn't seem to have disclosed. This was a
just a widely read and influential paper For this to
be playing out in Earl arranged for his inheritance to
be dispersed to Chapin's mother and siblings, but nothing to Charles.
(13:34):
The logic was that he had a fancy, high paying
job and the rest of them needed money, and Chapin
had money. He had been putting it away over the years,
according to his account, although others thought he may have
been paid off for various stories rather than accumulating his
wealth slowly over time, but in the decade following his
(13:55):
father's death, which happened very shortly after Russell's stage, Chapin
started using that money to make investments in the hopes
of growing his fortunes so he could live the lavish
life that he always dreamed of. In seven the Champains
had moved into the Plaza hotel they actually got to
move in before it was even open, and Charles had
acquired numerous high price luxuries like a yacht and horses.
(14:19):
He traveled in elite circles of wealth, and he wore
custom tailored clothes as he did then. In nineteen o nine,
during a turbulent time for The New York World in
which Pulitzer was in hot water with Theodore Roosevelt, the
staff was reorganized. Chapin was put in charge of the
morning paper, with authority over all the other editions as needed.
(14:41):
Chapin eliminated the day and night city editor positions and
filled those spots with assistants who reported to him. He
also shifted his favorite writers to salaried positions from freelance,
and he hired a lot of new people. He had
hired established writers that what were considered very high rate
of seventy dollars to eighty dollars a week. He also
(15:03):
hired writers fresh out of school at very low rates
to learn the trade and to be trained at the World.
Chapin status is temporary or permanent in the job was
definitely something that seemed to be up in the air
and discussions between him and Pulitzer, and there was definitely
friction and resistance within the staff of the Morning Edition
(15:24):
who were just not as eager to bend to Chapin's
will as the Evening Edition staff had been. Nine months
into the job, Chapin moved back to the Evening World
In Chapin once again seemed to be standing where lightning
metaphorically struck, at least in terms of news scoops. Mayor
William J. Gaynor had recently been elected with the backing
(15:45):
of Tammany Hall, and as part of coverage of the
new mayor, Chapin had a reporter interview him just before
he left on a European trip, and he sent a
photographer named William Warnicky to photograph the mayor at the
Hoboken Pier where he was to depart. Because of that
random assignment, more nicky in the Evening World got exclusive
(16:05):
photos of Mayor Gainer as he was shot by an
angry city employee. Chapin is famously quoted as saying when
he saw the photos, quote look blood all over him
and exclusive too. Had Gainer not survived that shooting, that
would have been even more callous and grim than it was.
Pulitzer died the following year, in nineteen eleven, on his
(16:28):
yacht as it was anchored off the South Carolina coast.
During the funeral, the World Offices shut off all the
presses and phones and observed a five minutes silence in
the dark. Chapin later wrote that he felt that his
spirit had been buried with Pulitzer. Even so, he continued
in his role with the paper. When the Titanic sank,
(16:49):
Chapin had, by random happenstance, known a reporter who was
on board the Carpathia, which took on survivors of the
Titanic tragedy. Carlos F. Heard and his wife Kathleen spoke
with the survivors, and they were able to assemble the
first detailed account of what had happened on board the
doomed ship. But the captain of the Carpathia forbid any
(17:10):
telegraph communication from going out, and he also didn't want
their rescued passengers to be bothered, so he issued an
order that the herds were not to be given any papers,
so they couldn't write anything down. Still, they worked to
document everything that unfolded on whatever scraps they could find
New York newsrooms. At this point, we're running kind of
(17:30):
on pure speculation because information had been limited to one
Associated Press bulletin that was very thin on details. It
mentioned that it had struck an iceberg, but basically nothing else.
It had nothing about the face of anyone on board.
And as the Carpathia returned to New York, papers actually
sent out boats to meet them in the water to
try to get this story. No wires were leaving the Carpathia,
(17:54):
but a wire did go out to Carlos Herd to
tell him Chapin was coming to meet a boat. Heard
never actually got that wire, but he knew Chapin's reputation
and correctly assumed that he was coming to meet him.
To be safe, he bundled his five thousand words story
into waterproof canvas and attached champagne corks to it. So
(18:17):
that if he had to throw it to Chapin and
it hit the water, it wouldn't sink. Chapin's tug was
racing a similar boat that was carrying reporters from Hurst's papers.
Although there were a lot of close misses, Chapin did
take possession of the story when it was flung overboard,
marked it up for the type setters while the tug
made its way to the docks, so the World's extra
(18:39):
edition covering the tragedy was being handed out to readers
before the Carpathia even docked. No other reporters even had
a chance to get a quote. At that point. Heard
was able to purchase a copy of his own story
as he left the ship and headed into the city. Yeah,
this is that story of all of the newspapers trying
(19:01):
to get out to the Carpathia is bananas. There are
literally ships ramming each other as they try to get
out there. Even when Heard had thrown his bundle overboard,
it got caught on a wire and one of the
sailors went out to get it, and the Carpathias captain
is yelling at him to bring it back, and the
passengers are yelling no, throw it down, and he the sailor,
(19:25):
threw it down to Chapin, and like the ink was
not even dry on the additions they were handing out
there at the dock. It was like one of those
like watershed moments in journalism for a lot of people,
because it uh it was astonishing that it happened. So
while Chapin's life was seemingly one success after another, he
(19:47):
was spending the fruits of his labor far faster than
they were coming in. His debt was mounting, Several of
his investments had sunk, and he was losing money in
the stock market, but he continued to live the life
of a millionaire. And one of the things that he
had done in all of this was take assets from
the trust that was intended for the estate of his
(20:08):
youngest sister, Edna. That was a daughter that his father
had after he had started his second family. But at
this point Edna was almost twenty one. That was the
age when her trust and its investments would be assessed
and accounted for and handed over to her, and Chapin
had no way to replace what he had taken. Additionally,
creditors were coming after him. He had such good instincts
(20:29):
for news, but none of that transferred over to finances.
He had no instincts in that space. Chapin resolved to
end his life. He put in a call to the
police station where he had friends, and said that he
needed a revolver. He had no permit for one, but
he was told to come down to the nearby police
office where he would be set up with one. He
(20:50):
and Nellie went to Washington via train. Charles came down
with the flu on the way and was confined to bed.
Once they arrived, he started to think about Nellie. What
would happen to her if he was dead. She had
no real support system and she wasn't in good health,
and he believed he would have to end both of
their lives to spare her the misery of destitution without
(21:14):
him to support her. She had no idea what their
financial situation was. The night Shapin intended to do this,
He had the revolver under his pillow as Nellie slept
beside him. When he put his hand on the gun, though,
he had a vision of his mother, young and beautiful,
shaking her head at him, so he abandoned the plan,
(21:34):
at least for a moment. As the following days played out,
Chapin became increasingly paranoid. He believed he was being followed,
and he finally, in a park, told Nellie all of
their problems and about his intention to end his own life.
He did not share with her that he had also
planned to kill her. Nellie was surely shocked by this information,
(21:54):
but she seems to have really kept quite a level head.
She told her husband that he had probably doably magnified
his troubles by keeping them to himself and letting them stew,
and that they just needed to return to New York
and meet with a lawyer friend and talk this whole
thing through, and Chapin did just that. He also reached
out to a friend in the tobacco industry for help,
who told him instantly he would do anything to get
(22:17):
Chapin out of trouble. And the lawyer had advised him like,
just come clean, say you used money from that estate
and that you were going to pay it back. And
so this tobacco friend basically enabled Charlie to replace the
missing trust funds with a financial gift, and then he
was able to wrap up his sibling and his trust
and be free of it, which was a huge burden
off his back, and life for a time went back
(22:39):
to normal. But several years later, and as the summer
of nineteen eighteen came to an end, Chapin was once
again in hot water. Financially. He had sold off a
lot of his luxury items to try to stay afloat.
He was still deeply in debt and creditors were threatening
to garnish his wages. He knew he would be fired
once this story he went public, and so once again
(23:02):
he decided that he needed to end his life and Nellie's.
In the early morning hours of September six, nine eighteen,
Charles shot Nellie as she slept. In addition to the
note that he wrote Carlos Sites, which we read at
the beginning of the first part of this he wrote
another to a friend, Harry Stimpson, confessing what he had done,
(23:23):
writing quote, for a long time, I have been unable
to sleep. My nerves are unstrung. I am tortured with pain.
My wife died this morning in a few minutes, I
also shall be dead. After writing these letters, Tapin got
dressed and put a do not disturb sign on the
hotel door and left with his revolver in his pocket.
(23:44):
He posted his letter to Sites and headed to Central
Park when that's where he intended to take his own life,
but he started having hallucinations. He saw hands reaching out
to grab him and thought they were reaching into his
pocket to take the gun. He kept wandering, eventually making
his way to Brooklyn, although he wasn't totally aware of
(24:05):
where he was. He had the gun pointed at himself
when a policeman walked by him, and he panicked and
put the weapon back in his pocket. Then he headed
for the subway. At one point, as he rode the train,
he described coming to the belief that he was already dead,
and in the meantime, as he was having this walk
(24:25):
about around New York, his letter to Sites had been delivered.
As a consequence, Nellie's body had been found, and alert
was put out that Chapin was either dead or he
was wandering the city armed and dangerous. When Chapin got
off the train near his office in the morning, he
bought a copy of the New York Times, and he
saw in its pages the headline wife of editor shot
(24:47):
dead in bed. He read in that paper the very
note that he had sent to Sites, and then after
vacillating over whether to turn himself in or kill himself,
Chapin went to the West sixty eight police station and
demanded to see the captain. When it seemed that he
was not going to be taken to the captain, he
told the lieutenant at the desk quote, I am Mr
(25:09):
Chapin of the New York Evening World, and I have
just killed my wife. We'll get to the aftermath of
this entire upsetting event after we take a break to
hear from the sponsors that keep stuffy missed in history
class going. When Chapin turned himself in, it was unsurprisingly
(25:35):
very big news, but in the case of a man
who had been the scourge of so many of New
York City's journalists, it was kind of a heyday hearst.
Papers were eager to run the story as fast as
they could, and in the case of the New York
Evening Journal, they ran the story of Chapin's confession right
next to the story that police were still looking for
Chapin because they didn't take the time to remove the
(25:56):
first one. In his statements to police, Chapin continue need
to insist that he had killed Nellie because he wanted
to save her from a pauper's life, insisting quote, I
idolized my wife. She was the only thing I lived for.
She was my life, my religion, and the only thing
I lived for. Chapin confessed everything, all the money he
(26:18):
had borrowed, his overdrawn accounts, his attempts to hide his
financial ruin, and his decision to end everything. The paper
sent their lawyer to represent him. Chapin asked the district
attorney if he could attend Nelly's funeral and offered to
waive his right to a trial and to go directly
to the execution. That offer was not accepted. He would
(26:39):
make that request repeatedly in the days before Nellie was buried,
but he was denied every time. In his cell, Chapin
asked to see the papers, and he read all of
the coverage of his crime and declined all interview requests. Meanwhile,
reporters were trying to piece together Chapin's last days and
figure out just how bad is financial situation was. There
(27:02):
were even requests posted in the papers that his creditors
should contact reporters because Chapin had destroyed most of his
personal papers, so they had nothing to go on. Interestingly enough,
no creditors ever came forward to reporters. Chapin's legal team
insisted that their client was not in his right mind
and was in no state to stand trial. This claim
(27:24):
was supported by the fact that Chapin continually said he
wanted to go to the electric chair. He insisted that
he was perfectly sane and that he didn't want a
sanity commission. One was assigned, though, in mid October, papers
around the country ran the findings of the commission. On
December seventeen, quote Charles E. Chapin, former city editor of
(27:45):
the New York Evening World, who confessed to having shot
and killed his wife at the Hotel Cumberland September six,
has been found legally sane, according to the report of
a Lunacy commission filed today. As trial was set to
begin on January twenty, nineteen nineteen, Chapin, however, consented to
(28:05):
a plea deal, which was submitted on January fourteenth. He
confessed to the murder and was sentenced to prison and
hard labor for a minimum of twenty years and a
maximum of his natural life. The press had been anticipating
a trial, and all of the stories that it would generate,
but Chapin had cut them off one last time. When
(28:26):
Chapin was recorded as an incoming inmate at Austining Correctional
Facility known even then as Sing Sing which is its
name today, he was listed as a widower. His prison
term started two days after he had received his sentence,
and he was sixty years old. Chapin's prison time was
vastly different from other Sing Sing inmates. He and the
(28:47):
warden Lewis Laws had become fast friends when Chapin began
his incarceration, and as a consequence, over time, Charles was
allowed to kind of do more or less as he
pleased within the walls of the prison. He had been
assigned of the prison library as his job rather than
actual hard labor, and he was given a pension from
the paper which enabled him to purchase things in the
(29:07):
prison store. On the suggestion of a friend, he started
writing his autobiography. That book, Charles Chapin Story Written in
Sing Sing Prison, was published in He also became the
editor of the prison newspaper, and for that job he
got in office. A colleague who once visited him noted
that that was a nicer office than the one he
(29:29):
had had at The New York World. The move into
the paper's office reinvigorated Chapin from the years before he
murdered Nelly. Up through his arrest and sentencing, he'd been
in sort of a torpor, but being back in the
business of editing a paper, even just the Sing Sing
Bulletin brought out some of Chapin's former energy. That meant
(29:50):
he also wrote most of it, because he found the
writing of his fellow inmates was not up to his standards.
The paper lasted less than a year and a half
before it was shut down by the state superintendent, but
Chapin was allowed to keep the office. Chapin found penpal
romance in prison twice. The first of his prison romances
was with a woman named Viola Irene Cooper. She had
(30:13):
written him first, wanting to learn more about him, and
he had responded with a startling level of vulnerability, writing quote,
I am more lonely than any person you may know,
so lonely that I am even now reaching out my
arm to clasp your hand, hoping you will let me
hold it in mind for just a little while. Chapin
sent Cooper, who was twenty four, his book. Although he
(30:35):
feared that once she read it, she would lose interest
in him, but she did not. She saw him in
her own word, as an olympian of writing, which was
her chosen profession as well. The two traded letters, and
they built dreams of living together in a cabin in
the woods. Viola came to visit him numerous times, but
it didn't last. Their relationship ended when Viola, still young
(30:58):
and still very much seeking adventure, set sail for Fiji
aboard the wind jammer bouguin Villa. The second woman Chapin
had a penpal romance with was Constance are Nelson, who
worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. She had
reached out to him after reading his autobiography. She asked
him to help with editing stories about banking. As with Cooper,
(31:20):
Chapin quickly took a familiar and romantic tone with Constance,
and before long the two of them were trading their
favorite novels. He was putting her photo across from him
at dinner and writing her passionate love letters. Nelson first
visited him in June of n and this was the
first of many visits. Constance was greeted by the warden
(31:42):
for lunch, almost as if she was visiting family, and
she and Chapin had time together in the morning. In
the afternoon, Constance also made a point to reach out
to Charles's family and even to visit Nellie's grave and
put flowers there. Yeah, she really seemed fairly committed to
this whole idea that she wanted to be in his life.
But perhaps the most surprising thing that Chapin did at
(32:04):
Sing Sing was gardening. The prison yard at Sing Sing
was large. It's been described as about the same area
of two football fields, and for a long time it
was very empty. There was a small garden at one
point near one of the buildings, but that was it.
And when Chapin had seemed extremely sullen one day, the
prison chaplain who he had become friends with, had suggested
(32:25):
he tried digging a little garden to get some fresh
air and possibly feel a little better. Chapin told him
he wasn't interested, but Father Cashion brought him gardening tools anyway,
and Chapin grudgingly used them, only to discover he really
enjoyed gardening and found it therapeutic. Soon he asked the
warden if he could be assigned to care for the
(32:45):
prisons lawns, and before long Chapin was drawing up designs
to fill the empty barren space of the prison yard.
When a local nursery discovered that he was trying to
expand the prisons green space, they sent a truckload of plants. Soon,
Chapin was reaching out to other people who might be
able to donate bulbs, seedlings, and supplies. Horticulturalists shared Chapin's
(33:08):
needs and wish lists among their various groups and friend circles,
and they eventually created a network of donators. Chapin's designed
for the prison yard to be transformed into a rose
garden was published by the American Rose Society, and their
annual there was a call with that for plant donations.
(33:28):
Chapin's efforts had so successfully transformed the prison that the
warden arranged for a greenhouse to be built. As winter
approach that year, Chapin called it the Rosary and started
taking his meals there. One of the really interesting details
of Chapin's makeover the prison grounds was the thoughtful way
that the landscaping had been planned, as it led to
(33:50):
what was called the death house. That was the area
of the facility where executions were carried out, and Chapin
had designed this space so that year round, a condemned
man's last view of the rolled outside that building would
be filled with beautiful flowers. In the gardens were coming
together so nicely that they were photographed by House and Garden.
Japan was in the papers again, but this time only
(34:12):
for his flowers. They had frequent visitors in the form
of horticulture enthusiasts and reporters for gardening magazines. Chapin started
to hope that all the positive publicity might help him
gain a pardon so that he, in Constance could start
a life together, and they had a lot of supporters
who lobbied for this on his behalf. Chapin wrote during
(34:33):
this time about how very much he had changed and
pondered how gardening had been the key to that change quote,
roses respond to me when all else fails. Park Row
would never recognize me. I don't even know myself. And
to think I have changed in so short a time,
do you think that growing flowers did it. As his
gardens had grown, people had started bringing him birds as well,
(34:57):
which he kept in the greenhouse, and he started showing
the birds to visitors with the same delight that he
shared his gardens. By the time Chapin had been incarcerated
for several years, he seemed to have gained a perspective
on his persona within the New York news scene. When
Irvin Cobb asked for a visit, the former editor initially refused,
but then he acquiesced, and he wrote a letter to
(35:18):
a friend about having done so. He wondered if Cobb
was looking for a way to quote get even for
the hard knocks he had when I was his boss. Yeah,
he realized he was a jerk um, whether or not
he regretted any of that. As another matter, Chapin's relationship
with Constance Nelson went through some strain. Chapin's assistant in
(35:40):
prison had been paroled, and that man turned to Constance
for help figuring out kind of how to fit into
the world outside, and she helped him out with money
and with clothing. But when Charles heard about this, he
assumed that there was something romantic between the two, and
he became very angry and jealous. He later told Constance
the jealousy was just part of passion. But they struggled
(36:02):
to find their former closeness again, and Chapin replied less
and less frequently to Constance's letters. In July of nine six,
Chapin became very ill and was diagnosed with acute guest stritis.
His health declined rapidly. At the same time, the prison
had become far too attractive to visitors who wanted to
(36:22):
see the gardens, and the warden had to end the
flower tours because there simply wasn't enough staff to watch
the tourists and the residents, although occasionally journalists are still
allowed to visit for stories. As Chapin approached his seventieth
birthday in late nine he seemed to have abandoned the
idea of a partner parole. When a reporter asked him
(36:45):
if he had thought about what would happen to his
birds and flowers if he were to be released, Chapin
told him quote, I do not believe I would care
to leave here if I could. He occasionally wrote letters
to Constance, but they seemed more critical and chastising than
conciliatory in nature. Yeah, he basically blamed her for their strains.
(37:07):
When an unknowing contractor drove a steam shovel through Chapin's
Rose Garden as part of a new drainage project for
the prison in late nineteen thirty. It destroyed some of
his work, and it really devastated Shapin. He had been
in poor health already with a stomach ailment, but this
moment where he saw his garden destroyed, seemed to be
the straw that broke the camel's back when it came
(37:29):
to his spirit. His health degraded rapidly, although he refused
to go to the prison hospital, and after several months
of being confined to bed visibly weakening, Chapin died on
December nine, thirty of bronchial pneumonia. His last words, which
he spoke to the warden, were quote, I want to die.
I want to get it over with. Chapin had laid
(37:50):
out his desire as at a letter to the warden
to be opened after his death. He didn't want a
funeral service. He wanted the least expensive coffin possible, and
most importantly, he wanted to be buried next to Nellie
in Glenwood Cemetery. His body was shipped to Washington, d c.
In accordance with that wish, and that was accompanied by
(38:11):
a wreath of roses that had come from his garden.
He's a wild ride. I have so many thoughts. I
do too, and most of them are not No, I'm
not flattering in any way. No, I will talk about
all this and behind the scenes as show um I
(38:32):
as a little bit of a bomb for this strange story.
I have a delightful listener mail which is from our
listener Gina. He says, Hi, Holly and Tracy, I just
listened to your episode on the invention of the dishwasher,
and I was tickled to hear the mention of Josephine
cochrd's grandfather, John Fitch. As you mentioned, he was instrumental
in the invention of the steam locomotive. Perhaps he deserves
(38:53):
his own episode. I live in the town where he
was born, and I also happened to live in the
house where he was born, or sort of, as the
original house was torn down. My house was built in
the nineteen fifties. I have attached a photo of his
memorial that lives in my front yard. It looks a
lot like a tombstone, and we get plenty of double
takes as people walk or drive by. My husband's spruced
(39:15):
it up a bit with some flowers and molts. But
I told him not to make it look too nice
because by all accounts, John Fitch was a deadbeat dad
and not a very nice man. Thank you for all
of your hard work on the show. I was able
to attend a live show pre pandemic, and I feel
so lucky to have been able to meet you too.
Thank you so much for this note and this photo. Uh,
(39:37):
it looks sprucy to me, so um. Hopefully we will
get to do live events again and see many more listeners.
But we'll just see what the future holds. Uh. In
the meantime, if you would like to write to us,
you can do so at History Podcast at ihart radio
dot com. You can also find us on social media
as Missed in History, and if you haven't subscribed, can
(40:00):
do that on the I heart Radio app or wherever
you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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