Dutch Schultz

October 24, 1935

The Dutchman

His real name was Arthur Flegenheimer, but he preferred to be called Dutch—Dutch Schultz. As a bootlegger, gangster and racketeer during the late 1920s through the mid 1930s, Schultz was one of the big ones, right up there with Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone. His was a name embedded in mob lore and one to be reckoned with.

Fearless, ambitious and intelligent, Schultz was a unique individual, to say the least. Heck, half the underworld thought that he was nuts. Charming and affable one minute, Schultz could erupt with a violent temper the next. He could also kill a man as coolly as he lit a cigarette. Any up-and-comer who dared lock horns with the Dutchman soon thought better of it, if they could still think at all. Schultz battled with the likes of Mad Dog Coll and Legs Diamond and came out on top.

But Schultz hadn’t reckoned on the zeal of special prosecutor Thomas Dewey, who had a mission—get rid of mobsters like Schultz no matter what the personal risk.

In 1935 Schultz was tried twice for tax evasion. Putting his vast fortune into his court battles, he launched a huge goodwill campaign that made him seem like a kind-hearted citizen wrongly placed on the hot seat. Schultz was ultimately triumphant in court and his second trial ended in acquittal. But Dewey wasn’t done yet and he began to build a case against the Dutchman that was rumoured to include accusations of racketeering and murder. If convicted of this last item Schultz could go to the electric chair.

Schultz brought his grievance to the National Crime Syndicate—Luciano, Siegel, Louis Buchalter, et al. He had a job for Murder Incorporated, he said—he wanted them to take care of Dewey for him and he was willing to pay whatever it took.

Daily News front page, 25th of October, 1935, reporting the fatal shooting of Dutch Schultz; and the arrest of the gangster’s widow.

Contract on Dewey

Unquestionably this request caused some raised eyebrows among the members of the Syndicate. Well, actually, they mostly thought Schultz had lost his marbles. Eliminating someone of Dewey’s standing would categorically bring a reprisal that none in the underworld would survive.

No, Dewey wouldn’t be rubbed out. Instead Luciano had a better idea and he put it to a vote—after Schultz had left the room, of course.

On October 24, 1935, as Schultz was dining at the Palace Chop House in New Jersey, several gunmen entered. He was in the rest room when the killers opened fire. Shot in the gut, he managed to stagger to a table where he collapsed into a chair. At first it seemed that his chances were good, but after the bullet had been removed, infection set in (the bullets had been treated with rust, an old mob trick) and Schultz spent the next twenty-two hours in agonized delirium, muttering incoherently. With ravings such as “don’t let Satan draw you too fast”, Schultz’s deathbed ramblings have become entrenched in his legend, and read like psychedelic poetry.

But in all his ramblings Schultz made no mention of who shot him—they never do.