Lost Judge

On Aug. 3, Justice Joseph Force Crater of the New York State Supreme Court was with his wife at their summer home in Maine. It was vacation-time for him; his court would not sit again until Aug. 25. But on Aug. 5 he unexpectedly appeared at his official chambers in Manhattan. A tall, sleek, keen-minded, conscientious jurist, he was jovial off the bench, well-liked by his law students at New York University. He joshed a courthouse reporter about the judiciary scandals local newspapers were reporting, asked lightly: "Who's next?" Aug. 6 he ordered his chauffeur to be ready to drive back to Maine, but he did not use his automobile that day. Instead he packed a briefcase and four portfolios with documents from his office, drew almost his entire cash balance ($5,100) from two banks, told his confidential attendant he was "going up Westchester way for a swim." That evening he dined on Broadway with Lawyer William Klein--and then utterly disappeared.

Last fortnight the family asked police aid. New York thus learned that in addition to judges indicted, judges deposed, judges sentenced to gaol, it now had a judge "lost." Immediately the Press linked Judge Crater's vanishment to New York's current political suitfest--the network of scandal evolving from U. S. District Attorney Tuttle's discovery that Magistrate George F. Ewald's wife had "loaned" $10,000 to Martin J. Healy, leader of the Cayuga Club, a Tammany organization in the 19th city Assembly District, simultaneously with Ewald's recommendation for the bench. On Aug. 8 the County grand jury took revealing testimony (TIME, Aug. 25). Later, Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt started State investigations into the Ewald case and into all Manhattan-&-The Bronx judgeships by Republican Attorney General Hamilton Ward, and by Justice Samuel Seabury for the Appellate Division, a Democrat but an oldtime Tammany foe. Justice Crater was not only a Tammanyman, but also president of the Cayuga Club, had been toastmaster at the dinner celebrating Magistrate Ewald's appointment. But when Attorney Tuttle, apprised of the Justice's disappearance, examined his records, nothing was found to discredit him in any way.

The widespread, battled search which followed chased vain clues throughout New England, into Canada, as far south as Orlando, Fla. Once Judge Crater was thought to have joined his old law associate, U. S. Senator Robert Ferdinand Wagner, in Europe. Several Broadway girls professed acquaintance with him. Showgirl June Manners, said to be his friend, also was reported missing.

Last week the New York City Board of Aldermen added $5,000 to the $2,500 reward already offered by the New York Evening World for finding Justice Crater. Famed Lawyer Max Steuer said he would raise the money if the Aldermen could not legally do so. New York police mailed to colleagues all over the world 10,000 circulars, like those advertising criminals wanted, with Judge Crater's photograph and description prominently displayed: "Age, 41 years; height, 6 feet; weight, 185 pounds; mixed grey hair . . . thin at top, parted in middle, 'slicked' down; . . . brown eyes; false teeth ... tip of right index finger somewhat mutilated." Few days later Mrs. Crater received a letter: "Your husband is alive and safe. . . . We believe there is something wrong with his head. ... I beg to inform you that unless $20,000 in bills of small denominations is delivered to us per instructions you will see him again only as a badly broken man, both physically and mentally. . . ."

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