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Dope. Digging up Rothstein's past to discover clues to his murder, investigators connected Rothstein with all manner of large-scale crockery. Federal agents announced they had certain proof that Rothstein was associated in an international narcotic syndicate with the dead Alfred Loewenstein, the Belgian financier who plunged from his plane into the English Channel. Papers found in Rothstein's files led to the discovery and seizure, in Grand Central Station last fortnight, of two trunks containing $2,000,000 worth of opium, cocaine, heroin, morphine. Two agents of this dope-ring were soon in custody, a Mrs. June Boyd in Chicago and one Joseph Unger who was on his way from Chicago to get the trunks in Manhattan when officers stopped the Twentieth Century Limited and rousted him out of his berth and into jail at Buffalo.
Whalen. After much humiliating and farcical discussion of how his resignation must be worded to cause Mayor Walker as little political embarrassment as possible, Police Commissioner Warren last week resigned. "As you very well know," his letter to the Mayor said, "I have for a long time been desirous of returning to the practice of law."
Mayor Walker meantime, had been expending his energies upon "drafting" a new police commissioner. His choice was striking if not sensational. It gave a cartoonist the chance to picture New York's police chief greeting a distinguished criminal with pomp and circumstance at the city gates. Mayor Walker's choice was Grover Aloysius Whalen, for years (until Mayor Walker was inaugurated in 1926) the sartorial mainstay and social sheet-anchor of Tammany Hall, longtime chairman of the Mayor's Committee on Receptions to Distinguished Guests.
Industrious son of an East Side contractor, Grover Aloysius Whalen acquired at military academy a stately physique and carriage which have excited admiration in Manhattan's smart tailorshops and large parades ever since. Onetime Mayor John F. ("Red Mike") Hylan, himself ungraceful socially, discovered Mr. Whalen's usefulness as a handshaker, and Mayor Walker, a busy man, continued him as the city's official greeter. The list of notables greeted in his time by Handshaker Whalen is far too long to print, but includes Belgian, British, Italian, Japanese, Swedish, and Rumanian Royalty. Polish generals, Brazilian and Venezuelan Presidents, Australian politicians, Ramsay MacDonald (twice) and daughter, etc. etc. "From most of these distinguished persons," says Mr. Whalen's biographer, "Mr. Whalen has received letters of thanks and esteem, which, it is useless to say, he values among his priceless treasures."
When not handshaking the Whalen talents have been applied to general-managing the John Wanamaker department store in Manhattan, a position he accepted in 1924 after a most notable career in publie offices ranging from Mayor's secretary to Commissioner of Plants & Structures.